Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner warns that there will be a second ’stimulus package’ for the economy:

What’s left of the budget surplus could soon go as the Federal Government considers a second spending spree to boost the economy.

The Government last month announced a $10.4 billion economic stimulus package, cutting into its forecast $21.7 billion budget surplus.

The surplus has since been slashed to $5.4 billion for 2008-09, partly due to falling revenue as a flow-on impact of the global financial crisis.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says a second package may be needed by June.

“Clearly one of the options that we’ve got is to spend some of the remaining surplus for additional stimulatory activity,” Mr Tanner told ABC Television on Sunday.

If that’s to be the case, any chance of the government returning more of our taxes to us rather than spending it on our behalf on some other pet cause (like the latest green cars nonsense)?

Also, former PM Howard weighs into the financial crisis debate and takes the side of the Austrian libertarian interepretation:

Mr Howard said one of the triggers of the economic downturn - the sub-prime crisis in the US - was caused by government policy.

“The overindulgence of loan making for those who couldn’t afford to repay those loans demonstrates that governments and legislatures should never use financial systems to deliver a welfare policy,” he said in an interview with US cable television network, Fox News, recorded on Saturday and broadcast in Australia on Sunday.