Caller Patrick from Sydney wants to know if gay males with dogs got anything in the budget.

Everyone seems confused about the solar panel means test.

And carers aren’t happy.

Here’s a rundown of talkback callers discussing whether it was as good for them as it was for Wayne:

Talkback caller of the day:

4BC (Brisbane), Breakfast 06:47AM

Caller Anne says she was watching Kerry O’Brien interviewing Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan last night, and asks if Swan has a hair piece. Davie says his hair is real and perfect. Davie says his hair is not as perfect of Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson’s hair. Davie says a well known Qld identity has a hair piece, but he does not want to mention him because there could be a lawsuit.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA:

  • 6PR (Perth), Breakfast 05:42AM: Caller Heather says she is an old age pensioner who was ignored by the Budget. Heather says she expected at least a $20 a week rise but got nothing. Heather says it’s disgraceful.
  • 6PR (Perth), Breakfast 05:44AM: Caller Donny says the Budget is absolute garbage. Donny says people who work their ass off from early in the morning to late at night trying to get ahead have been left out. Donny says the Govt has shafted the hard working Australians who earn above $150,000 a year.

QUEENSLAND:

  • 4BC (Brisbane), Breakfast 06:10AM: Caller John refers to the federal budget, and says he wishes he could ‘become’ Telstra. John says they are getting four billion dollars to do the broadband upgrade, and they are half privately owned. John says he was against the sell off of Telstra. Davie suggests it is in the Government’s interest to have a state of the art telecommunications company.
  • 4BC (Brisbane), Breakfast 06:47AM: Caller Anne says she was watching Kerry O’Brien interviewing Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan last night, and asks if Swan has a hair piece. Davie says his hair is real and perfect. Davie says his hair is not as perfect of Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson’s hair. Davie says a well known Qld identity has a hair piece, but he does not want to mention him because there could be a lawsuit.
  • 4BC (Brisbane), 07:43AM: Brian says there are 500,000 carers throughout Australia that would love to give their time to help people, but the Government is punishing them for not going into superannuation and losing their money.
  • 4BC (Brisbane) 10:14AM: Caller Ryan continues discussion on the luxury car tax. Ryan says that the Federal Budget is slugging the middle class and working families. Ryan says that he would not consider a $57,000 and above car a luxury car. Ryan says that vehicles like Toyota Tarago’s are not luxury vehicles.

VICTORIA:

  • 3AW (Melbourne), Breakfast, 06:14AM: Caller Graham asks if changes in the baby bonus announced in the budget are immediate or will be phased in over the next 12 months. Ross Stevenson says it will be means-tested, and they will get the details and get back to Graham.
  • ABC 774 Melbourne 08:51AM: Caller Josie is a single pensioner and says she did not see anything in the Budget that will help her.
  • ABC Goulburn Murray (Wodonga 08:38AM: Caller Kerry says the govt’s lifting of the Medicare levy threshold in the recent budget hasn’t addressed key health issues, including hospital waiting lists. She says the public hospital system “isn’t up to speed.”
  • ABC Goulburn Murray (Wodonga) 08:39AM: Caller Tony says the govt’s lifting of the Medicare levy threshold in the recent budget is a “catastrophe”. He says the govt has made a huge mistake with the budget and need to be held accountable. He says the budget has done “absolutely nothing” but make the situation worse for those with little money.

NSW:

  • 2GB (Sydney), Breakfast 06:19AM: Caller Frank says the budget mentioned nothing last night about pensioners. Alan Jones says that it was a typical Treasury budget. He says that Kevin Rudd promised to fix grocery and petrol prices. Frank says they’ve all gone up.
  • 2GB (Sydney), Breakfast, 06:22AM: Caller Barry lives in Kellyville, and because public transport is expensive people have to have a car. He says he is retired. He says he got nothing in the budget. Jones says with such a large surplus, there should be more for carers and the retired. He says that there are two Australias, those people who can afford to absorb extra costs and those who can’t.
  • 2GB (Sydney), Breakfast, 06:24AM: Caller Roger says when people like Wayne Swan refuse to accept that $96bn took 10 years to pay off and that is why he has money to play with now, he doesn’t believe a word Swan says. He says the budget is about making Aust powerful and rich, not a bunch of dummies.
  • ABC 702 Sydney (Sydney), Breakfast, 07:20AM: Caller Leigh says the Fed Govts need a reality check, the carers got nothing from the budget. She says carers have no capacity to earn more in the way “working families” do.
  • ABC 702 Sydney (Sydney), Breakfast, 07:21AM: Caller Rosemary objects to the reduction in rebate on solar panels in the Fed budget, Spencer says they are means testing it.
  • ABC 702 Sydney (Sydney), Breakfast, 07:24AM: Caller Patrick asks if gay males with dogs got anything in the budget.
  • 2SM (Sydney), Grant Goldman 07:27AM: Goldman talks to caller Helen from Orange about the previous caller who is on the pension. She says they should all write to Swan so he is inundated with letters.
  • 2UE (Sydney), Breakfast, 08:22AM: Caller Coral says there is nothing in the budget for the pensioners and she did not hear pensioners mentioned at all. Carlton says there is the utilities allowance. Coral says she has been doing voluntary work at Anglicare for ten years but she has had to quit as she can not afford petrol.
  • 2UE (Sydney), 08:25AM : Caller Judy says Malcolm Turnbull was struggling and he told a porkie that none of the commentators interviewed after the budget liked it. Judy says Alan Kohler was the first man up and he liked it. Judy says if Kohler likes it then she likes it.

ACT:

  • ABC 666 Canberra (Canberra), 06:41AM: Caller Adam advises Solly what Condensate is with Solly citing Condensate is set to be heavily taxed following last evening’s budget with Adam citing Condensate is a bi-product of Natural Gas which can be used as a fuel itself or can also be used as a chemical to process other fuels such as Petrol and Kerosene.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA:

  • ABC 891 Adelaide (Adelaide), Breakfast 06:56AM: Caller Vincent tells the panel that the MP sitting behind Wayne Swan during last night’s budget broadcast was Jodie Campbell, Member for Bass. She says there are three MPs who are in their first year who have the job of looking intelligent, bright and chirpy. McCarthy says a listener thought is was Kate Ellis. Vincent says he saw Campbell on Crikey in regards to a story about the new MPs being a cheer squad. McCarthy says Allen called to say the seat is normally occupied by a member from a marginal seat as a profile rating exercise. He says it would have done that for Kate Ellis.
  • AA (Adelaide), 07:39AM: Leonie Trimper is not happy with the budget, but primary schools have been completely overlooked. She talks about the Govt funding the early years and secondary, but have omitted the middle, and doesn’t think it makes good economic sense. She talks about the $577M for literacy and numeracy over four years, and the money for the $700 voucher scheme for parents. She talks about the tax rebates for parents for computers and how you don’t get computers half price because you’re a primary student. She says with Rudd offering computers for students, you need infrastructure to support it. Andrew is a carer for a child who is deaf and autistic, who is being placed in classes with ten students with challenging behaviours. Trimper says students with disabilities and extreme behaviours was one of their priorities. She says the Minister did say that every group that meet with her, that was high on their priority list. She says maybe with the $42B they committed to the quadrennium funding, that may be a feature. She talks about help for working families for childcare and the after hours care system that wasn’t mentioned. She says the Fed Govt has committed to putting extra money into disadvantaged schools in all sectors. She talks about the national tests and about a student who is a top writer, that did the test with strict rules and the child started crying and couldn’t do the task. She asks how could you judge that child on one test, children in year three aren’t used to strict test conditions. She wouldn’t like to see schools being judged on the one test.

TASMANIA:

  • ABC 936 Hobart (Hobart), 07:44AM: Caller Diana comments on the amount of times the term ‘working families’ was used in the budget announcement last night. She counted thirteen before losing count and noted “the noddies behind Wayne Swan who looked like toy dogs in the backs of cars.”