A 10-week series of Power of Print webinars, brought to you by The Real Media Collective, has kicked off with Charles Watson, GM of IR, Policy and Governance, unpacking the recent A/NZ federal budgets and explaining what they mean for business owners.
The hour-long webinars take place each Wednesday at 11am and are designed to help print businesses not only survive, but thrive, in a COVID-normal with a broad variety of information, helpful hints and tricks included to help them on their way.
In the first webinar in the series, Watson unpacked the recent budgets in Australia and New Zealand and gave an overview of the processes that create a budget to meet long term national economic and social objectives.
To webinar’s Class Notes summarise the terrain covered, or you can watch you the video here.
Next week, Revolution Print director, Leon Wilson, will share his journey on creating a digital print brand.
The five steps of Budget creation
The “strategic phase” is the first step in the process and Watson said is an important phase for industry groups like TRMC to be involved in as this involvement helps guide policymakers on where expenditure is best used and the technical requirements needed for its impact to be maximised.
The “decision phase” marks the second part of the process and Watson said this generally occurs when ministers put forward their initiatives and Treasury assesses them to work out which initiatives “have legs” and from there decisions are made.
Then comes the “production phase” and this is where the proposed budget is packaged up by Treasury using estimates, appropriations and fiscal updates. This also includes media kits with press releases and budget day speeches.
Then comes the “legislation phase” and the final “implementation phase” which can deliver impacts well beyond the current period and into the future, so long as all the phases have been done well.
“Recent times with the pandemic has forced changes to the budget as would be expected. We have seen increased government expenditure and lower taxes to reboot economies,” Watson said.
NZ Budget review
New Zealand’s Budget was labelled the “Wellbeing Budget – Securing our Recovery”. Watson said this was for good reason as it did focus heavily on social wellbeing which will filter through the economy.
Watson said the NZ budget highlights were infrastructure expenditure; $36m for a Business Connect initiative; $44m for small business digital training and support programmes. Vocational Education and Training (VET) also got a funding boost of $279m across four years to support a new unified system for but this won’t kick in until 2023.
Watson said social unemployment insurance was also in the budget with the program to cover 80% of a workers income if they lose their job, funded by a levy which is collected as part of the accident compensation scheme.
Australia’s 2021 Budget: ‘Securing Australia’s Recovery’
Watson said Australia’s budget was all about ‘shovel-ready’ infrastructure projects to create jobs, but he credited the instant asset write off scheme and loss carry back scheme extensions has extremely useful for business. He also mentioned the company tax cut for small business reducing from 30 to 25 per cent on July 1 as another benefit.
Referring to the instant asset write off scheme, Watson said: “Effectively, this means if your business has a turnover of up to $5b they will be able to claim an immediate deduction on the capital cost of purchasing an eligible depreciable product until June 30, 2023.
“We are happy to see this scheme was extended as it gives companies and members an opportunity to invest in new and upgraded equipment with 100 per cent write off.”
He also commented on the $100m for an Office of Supply Chain Resilience to be established. Another feature that could benefit print is the $1.2 billion injection into upskilling small business with digital skills.
“Another interesting highlight is that small businesses with an annual turnover of less than $10m can apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to act as an intermediary to pause or modify any disputed ATO debt recovery actions,” Watson said.
The Real Media Collective CEO Kellie Northwood encouraged industry members to come forward with suggestions so these can form part of any future submissions the TRMC makes on policy matters.
She said a new industry insights survey would be coming out soon and urged all to complete it and send back.
The Power of Print webinars run each Wednesday at 11am until August 25.
Next up is Leon Wilson of Revolution Print next Wednesday.
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