TREASURER Wayne Swan’s cuts to both personal taxes and government spending is sending a mixes messages to Australians about economic management, according to Member for New England Tony Windsor.

Responding to Tuesday night’s Federal budget, Mr Windsor said while the Government has announced $7billion in spending cuts to try to stem inflation, its decision to keep an election promise and cut personal income taxes by $31billion will provide Australians with more disposable income which will in fact fuel inflation.

“Before the budget, the Government declared inflation ‘public enemy number one’ and rightly so however by delivering tax cuts, the Government is playing with the fire of inflation and running a very high risk of fuelling it rather than putting it out,” he said.

Rather than honour an election promise to cut taxes, done to match a similar promise of the former Howard government, Mr Windsor said Labor should have reviewed the decision when the true state of the economy became clear.

While saying more time was needed to analyse all the detail, Mr Windsor was positive about funding programs in the area of climate change and the development of renewable energy sources.

“With $1.7billion for the development of clean energy, renewable energy and clean coal are good for future industry outcomes whilst there has been a good outcome also for the aged care industry with the continuation of the 1.75 per cent increase in the conditional adjustment payment,” Mr Windsor said.

He said he was pleased to see the Roads to Recovery Program continued, which was bound to be welcomed by local government representatives. He said he also welcomed the retention of the AusLink Strategic Regional Projects program which aims to promote regional development.

In terms of agriculture and the environment, Mr Windsor said the government had continued the Exceptional Circumstances drought assistance program, setting aside $761million for this year. The $2.2billion Caring for our Country program is designed to integrate natural resource management. Meanwhile climate change and environmental issues have received a boost with $2.3billion over five years including $500m for renewable energy and $150m for energy innovation. He also welcomed the Government’s commitment to $12.9billion over 10 years for the national Water for the Future program.

“The continuation of the Australian Broadband Guarantee program worth another $270m over the next four years whilst the Government is developing its National Broadband Network worth $4.7billion should also provide regional Australia with a good service and open up other opportunities to access technology,” Mr Windsor said.

The National Farmers Federation said the budget attempted to address major challenges to Australian agriculture to provide food for the nation and the world - a changing climate, chronic skills shortages, inefficient transport and communications networks, and water reform.

“The budget combines essential spending on building capacity across key areas that hamper economic growth – where Australia desperately needs to be more astute and efficient – with savings at the margins,” NFF President David Crombie said.

Regarding education and training, Mr Crombie said the NFF was concerned about the potential restrictiveness of the $11 billion ‘Education Investment Fund’ and its incapacity to deliver flexible training for regional students.

However it felt the benefits of the now-defunct FarmBis program could instead be accessed under the training component of the new ‘Australia’s Farming Future’ program.

It welcomed the spending on water policy, but said not enough had been done to create major freight hubs in regional Australia.

Rural Doctors Association of Australia president Dr Peter Rischbieth said while there were modest improvments in spending, rural Australia was having to rely more and more on overseas trained doctors and major incentives were needed to encourage people choosing a medical career in the rural areas.

Australian Dental Association president Dr John Matthews welcomed additional spending to the states but said it should be more accountable, while the new Teen Dental Plan program should include under 25s and provide more funding so those more urgent cases did not have to queue in the public system.