Australia Faces ‘Difficult’ Decisions on Budget, Swan Says

Australia needs to curb spending and make “difficult budget decisions” because tax revenue won’t grow as quickly as it did between 2004 and 2007 during the mining industry’s previous boom, Treasurer Wayne Swan said.

“We shouldn’t expect to see a repeat of the rivers of gold that flowed into the government coffers” when an additional A$334 billion ($359 billion) in tax revenue was generated, Swan said yesterday in his weekly economic notes. “The revenues will still be there, but we shouldn’t expect” a similar surge.