Roundup: Australian opposition pledges lower medium-term deficits, debt if elected to govern

CANBERRA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Australia's opposition has released modeling showing that the country's budget deficits would be higher over the next two years but lower in the medium-term if it wins Saturday's election.

The Coalition on Thursday released the costing of its policy platform, revealing that the combined budget deficit for the next two financial years if it wins power would be 7.9 billion Australian dollars (5 billion U.S. dollars) higher than forecast by the governing Labor Party.

The Coalition modeling claims the party would deliver a total deficit 21.8 billion Australian dollars (13.9 billion U.S. dollars) lower than Labor in the following two years for a total deficit over the four-year period 13.9 billion Australian dollars (8.8 billion U.S. dollars) lower than forecast by Labor.

In the same period, it estimated that Australia's net debt would be 40.8 billion Australian dollars (26 billion U.S. dollars) lower under a Coalition government than the incumbent Labor government.

The majority of the Coalition's forecast budget improvement would be delivered through its planned spending cuts.

The conservative party has previously announced a plan to cut 41,000 public service jobs in Canberra by 2030.

According to the modeling released on Thursday, doing so would save the federal budget by 17.2 billion Australian dollars (10.9 billion U.S. dollars) over the next four years.

The party, which is led by alternative Prime Minister Peter Dutton, has also pledged to cut Australia's permanent migrant intake from 185,000 in 2024-25 to 140,000 in 2025-26. The permanent migrant intake would then increase to 150,000 in the following two years then to 160,000 after that.

It said on Thursday that the migration cut would cost the budget 4.2 billion Australian dollars (2.6 billion U.S. dollars) over four years, but that it would be recouped by increasing visa application fees.

The Coalition would also cut Australia's foreign aid budget by 813.5 million Australian dollars (519.7 million U.S. dollars).

New polling published by the Australian branch of Britain-based market research firm YouGov on Thursday found that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Labor government is on track to win a second term in power.

Updated data published by the Australian Electoral Commission showed that 4.8 million of Australia's 18 million registered voters had cast their ballots at pre-poll locations as of Wednesday and that an additional 1.3 million had returned postal ballots. Enditem