Good morning,

Chief executives and company directors have delivered a sharp critique of Labor’s pre-election budget , slamming the prospect of a decade of deficits and a failure to push ahead with substantive policy reform. 

Meanwhile, winemakers have dismissed the government’s budget gesture of lifting the rebate available to wineries by $50,000 as a “drop in the barrel”, and condemned a missed opportunity for structural reform to save the industry from a wipe-out. 

And Australia’s eastern seaboard does not have sufficient time to wait for new sources of gas to be developed even if feasible and, as a result, importing LNG is the only solution , warns a Viva Energy senior executive.