1. People running overseas online hotel booking websites will have to charge GST.
Until now, they were exempt from GST – this was introduced in 2005, when overseas online hotel bookings were rare – but from July 1, 2019 they will have to comply the same way a local person selling hotel accommodation would.
2. The government will outlaw cash payments of more than $10,000…so don’t pay for that, er, secondhand car in cash? If you were going to? IDK.
(This is actually aimed at criminals.)
3. Australia will spend millions on prosecuting the people responsible for downing the passenger plane MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, killing hundreds of people, including several Australians.
$50 million over four years will go towards the Dutch national prosecution to meet Australia’s share of costs and also let family members of victims take part in the court proceedings.
4. More than $200 million will go towards GPS technology for farmers, so they can sow seeds between the rows of last year’s crop (instead of back over the same rows) and also help in spreading water, fertiliser and herbicides.
Basically, it makes for bigger and better crops and avoids overworking the soil if farmers can be super precise – like, we’re talking centimetres – about where they sow seeds.
5. OK this one is random. The government will spend $300,000 on coming up with options to improve cruise ship access to Sydney.
Look to be fair, I watched a fucking enormous cruise ship basically do a three point turn in Sydney Harbour the other day.
6. If you’re not aware of the Organ Donor Register, you might become more aware soon, as the government is spending $400,000 on increasing awareness.
It hopes more people will sign up, so more people can get life-saving organ transplants.
7. We must manage the drones!
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority will get $2.9 million to manage drones! It’ll go towards looking at safety standards and compliance among recreational and commercial drones.
8. The four largest parliamentary parties will split $300,000 between them to improve voter information security.
These parties are exempt from the Privacy Act but instead of changing that it seems they will get some moolah to improve their current set-up.
9. The luxury car tax will no longer apply to cars that went overseas to be refurbished and then came back into Australia.
The more you know!
10. We are tracking innovation!
One million dollars has been set aside to review innovation. Specifically, to help develop new metrics to make sure innovation is accurately measured in Australia. I don’t know what any of this really means, but it’s coming out of the current budget of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.
11. There's money for a compulsory recall of Takata airbags.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will get $8.6 million to oversee the compulsory recall of cars with defective Takata airbags in them.
12. A handful of organisations have been newly listed as being a deductible gift recipient — including the Victorian Pride Centre.
The others are the Paul Ramsay Foundation, the Australian Women Donors Network, Smile Like Drake, the Australian Sports Charitable Fund and the Q Foundation Trust.
13. Every year in the budget there are changes to agriculture levies that fractionally – FRACTIONALLY – affect the price of various foods. This year, they are macadamias, honey and mushrooms!
There will be a 0.2 cent per kilo levy on dried macadamia kernels; the marketing part of the mushroom levy will decrease from $3.24 to $2.92 per kilo of mushroom spawn; and there’s a decrease of 0.2 cents in one type of honey levy, but an increase of 0.2 cents on another type of honey levy, so really honey sort of just stays the same.
14. Following a dismal year for Australian cricket fans, a subsidiary of the International Cricket Council will have a five-year tax exemption so the ICC World Twenty20 can be held in Australia in 2020. BYO sandpaper.
According to the budget papers, the cost to revenue is “unquantifiable”.
15. The government will spend $9 million over four years on helping the Department of Parliamentary Services start a cyber security operations centre.
Here’s hoping that for the love of god it stops the hackers who are liking porn tweets from government ministers’ Twitter accounts.