The treasurer has begun his address at the National Press Club, a staple of budget week.
The NPC chair, Tom Connell, points out that its the 52nd post budget address by a treasurer,. is being held at the Parliament House great hall.
He starts with a long list of thankyous, including the PM, the finance minister, Katy Gallagher,. his family who he calls the … “Chalmy army”.
He says this has been his hardest budget by far, but – as he’s been touting – the most “ambitious”.
double quotation mark The ambitious reforms at the core of this budget are not there despite all of this global uncertainty,. because of it. They’re made more urgent by the combination of big cyclical shifts under way in our economies and in our societies.
Now, we have made some hard decisions,. we have come to a different view on some very contentious policies, for the right reasons. And I’d rather defend the shift in policy than leave a broken status quo in place to do more damage. to marginalise more people over time.
Next up is my colleague, Patrick Commins, who asks the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, if completely grandfathering negative gearing (i.e. cutting off the incentives completely even to those who already own investment properties) would have raised more revenue,. why the government didn’t choose to do that.
Chalmers says that the reforms strike the right balance – the argument he’s made to those who say the policy goes too far. to those who say it doesn’t go far enough.
double quotation mark We respect. recognise decisions that people have taken in the past, and so [this] is essentially a prospective set of tax reforms that we are proposing.
We’ve balanced respecting. recognising those former investments at the same time as we’re changing the system for the future, so that we continue to provide a discount in the CGT system, but calculated in a way that minimises some of these other distortions.
Drastic cuts to NDIS ‘difficult but doable’, says Chalmers
The lion’s share of the more than $60bn in savings in last night’s budget comes from drastic cuts to the national disability insurance scheme – changes. haven’t yet been introduced to parliament.
Nine newspaper’s Paul Sakkal asks how the government will bank all those savings when even the health minister, Mark Butler, has admitted that the changes to eligibility will be hard to work out. some of the states are dragging their feet.
Chalmers says he’s confident that the government can achieve the savings,. says that while there is “a level of trepidation” among commentators, the reform to the NDIS is necessary.
double quotation mark There are a number of elements of the budget which are difficult. doable … We’re very cautious about changes that we make to the NDIS, but our motivation there is really clear. We’re trying to save the thing from itself. It was growing too fast. It would have consumed itself. Some future government with different motivations to ours would have been tempted to end or effectively ruin the scheme.
I understand that it will take a lot of work,. not just at the Commonwealth level, to make sure that the numbers that we’ve accounted for in the budget come to a fruition, but I’m confident that we can
Migration increase due to ‘fewer people departing Australia’, says Chalmers
Migration numbers –. we know have been a huge political issue – have ticked up in the latest budget compared to the Treasury’s previous estimates.
SBS’s Anna Henderson asks Jim Chalmers why Treasury has repeatedly underestimated net overseas migration, which he disputes.
The treasurer says there is always volatility in those numbers, like other forecasts in the budget,. adds that some of the measures announced last night put “downward pressure” on migration numbers.
double quotation mark There’s the usual amount of uncertainty about forecasting a range of numbers in the budget, including that one, what we’re seeing this year. next year is more a reflection of fewer people departing Australia, rather than another spike in arrivals like we saw, which began before we came to office.
Will Chalmers target the ‘top end of town’?
One key language shift between the tax announcements now. Bill Shorten ’s 2016 and 2019 election campaigns has been dropping rhetoric around hitting the “top end of town”.
ABC’s David Speers asks Chalmers if there’s more reform coming that will hit the top end of town – who if they already own investment properties. will still be able to access lucrative negative gearing tax incentives.
Chalmers won’t bite,. says that his focus (as he’s been saying all morning) is for future tax reform to be geared towards fixing ongoing bracket creep.
He says the $250 permanent tax offset is a mechanism to do that.
double quotation mark My ambition when it comes to future tax reform is to try. provide more tax relief for working people. That’s why I’ve set up this architecture …
We’ve been upfront about that, the architecture that we set up in recognising that we need to better align the tax paid by workers with the tax paid by people who make their living in other legitimate ways, as we set up this architecture to make that easier on the income tax side for workers,. so I would intend to make the most of that at some future point.
Leaving the press club for a moment, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson says Jim Chalmers ’ budget is “communism taking over”.
Changes to negative gearing, the capital gains tax. trusts outlined in Tuesday’s budget are designed to address “intergenerational equity” and give prospective first home buyers a better shot at cracking the market.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament House, Hanson accused the government of “stripping” wealth from baby boomers. redistributing it to younger Australians.
The 71-year-old said people of her generation accumulated wealth by working hard, buying second-hand furniture. clothes and not dining at restaurants.
double quotation mark This is going to have a huge impact on people in this country. I see this as nothing but communism taking over and redistributing wealth.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers ends his address to the National Press Club with a pointed political comment. insisting that Labor is the only party in Australia occupying the “sensible centre”.
It’s a message the government has been trying to push. while populist movements from One Nation to Nigel Farage ’s Reform in the UK grow.
While One Nation has been eating the Coalition’s lunch in Australia, Reform has been devastating to the UK’s Labour government,. the Australian government has said that addressing economic uncertainty and delivering cost-of-living relief is the best way to counter that here.
Chalmers goes to that point:
double quotation mark When you look around the world. from Farage to Farrer – the choice this moment presents for parties of government is clear.
We are the last ones standing in the sensible centre of Australian politics but we aren’t standing still.
Standing still would make us the reluctant defenders of a status quo that doesn’t work. We stand for real change that makes a real difference.
Big economic shocks ‘almost routine’, says Chalmers
Treasurer Jim Chalmers gives us a little taste of how this budget came together. saying at the National Press Club that while there were still big changes after war erupted in the Middle East, some of the core elements had been there since the summer when the bulk of budget planning began.
He says that while negative gearing, capital gains tax. trust changes weren’t finalised back then, the government was committed to tax reform months ago.
double quotation mark We did agree that to deliver intergenerational fairness. rebalance the system there needed to be tax reform, even if we hadn’t concluded what every element of the final package would look like.
Chalmers adds that a government can’t wait for global stability to make significant policy changes, because stability is now rare.
double quotation mark These big shocks. big shifts aren’t rare any more – they’re almost routine – but their impacts are still profound.
If you wait for perfect stability to reform, you’ll be waiting for ever. This global turbulence is no excuse to roll up into a little ball. hope it passes quickly, if anything it’s a reason to do more on resilience and more on reform, more urgently.
Wage rises have started to slow even as prices surge, slipping to 3.3% annually in the March quarter.
The private sector saw annual wage growth slip from 3.4% in March 2025 to 3.2% this year. while the public sector rate fell from 3.6% to 3.4%, the Australia Bureau of Statistics reported today.
If not for a big pickup in care sector wages, including federal funding for childcare workers. Queensland hospital workers, overall wage growth would have been even lower.
Wages stayed flat for workers in retail, hospitality,. information, media and telecommunications sector, rising 0.1% in the quarter, while utilities workers saw wages rise 1.1%.
The share of employees getting wage rises above 4% has slimmed down to just over one in five.
The federal government expects wages to slow to 3.25% by June. then pick up very slightly to 3.5% over the following two years. Real incomes will fall: inflation is set to surge to 5% by June, then 2.5% over the next two years.
Even on those forecasts, real wages won’t get back to where they were in mid-2025 until mid-2028. Growth could be even slower if the Fair Work Commission delays its normal boost to the minimum wage from July. as is being considered.
The treasurer has begun his address at the National Press Club, a staple of budget week.
The NPC chair, Tom Connell, points out that its the 52nd post budget address by a treasurer,. is being held at the Parliament House great hall.
He starts with a long list of thankyous, including the PM, the finance minister, Katy Gallagher,. his family who he calls the … “Chalmy army”.
He says this has been his hardest budget by far, but – as he’s been touting – the most “ambitious”.
double quotation mark The ambitious reforms at the core of this budget are not there despite all of this global uncertainty,. because of it. They’re made more urgent by the combination of big cyclical shifts under way in our economies and in our societies.
Now, we have made some hard decisions,. we have come to a different view on some very contentious policies, for the right reasons. And I’d rather defend the shift in policy than leave a broken status quo in place to do more damage. to marginalise more people over time.
Greens undecided on whether to support tax changes
The Greens will be the government’s key to passing its capital gains tax. negative gearing reforms through the Senate, but they say that they’ll have to wait for the legislation before deciding whether the give the government the green light.
This is usual process,. the reforms don’t go as far as the Greens have been calling for, so they might try to use a bargaining chip or two to tighten up the changes further.
The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, told journalists the government is keeping tax incentives for wealthy individuals,. using vulnerable Australians and people with a disability to pay for the budget.
double quotation mark This will be a test for the Labor government in two years’ time. will these reforms actually help to ease the housing crisis? That will be a question for the government to answer at the next election, because there was nothing in this budget for renters,. they have grandfathered in all of those property investor tax perks, and they’re finding money for weapons and war while punching down on the disability community.
We’re going to take a look at the details of the legislation once the government puts it forward,. if it’s a small step forward, that will factor into our decision making, like grandfathering in the inequality of property investor tax perks.
Australia’s home loan market has recorded its sharpest start-of-year slowdown since 2019 as interest rates. the US-Israel war on Iran shake confidence and stretch budgets.
The number of new loans in the first three months of 2026 fell 6.2% from the last three months of 2025. seasonally adjusted data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.
Those still borrowing have tightened their budgets, with average loan sizes falling for owner-occupiers and investors.
Owner-occupier borrowing fell 6.9% from the prior quarter, its biggest December to March slowdown since 2019. First home buyers were slightly more resilient than upsizers.
Home lending is still higher than it was a year ago, after interest rate cuts. the government’s 5% deposit scheme sent demand and prices soaring over 2025.
Investors had taken out a record number of loans in 2025. the number of investor loans fell 5.3% in the March quarter, their biggest December to March slowdown since 2023.
With last night’s budget revealing reforms to capital gains tax. negative gearing, investor lending is expected to slow even further.
Continuing from our last post on the NSW premier …
Minns says there is “less good news” when it comes to infrastructure spending. after NSW was allocated $2.8bn of federal funding in 2026-27, equivalent to $344 per person. Minns says Western Australia, Queensland. South Australia will receive $582, $756 and $878 per person respectively, while Victoria will receive $657, after an additional $3.8bn allocated for the Suburban Rail Loop. He says:
double quotation mark NSW will receive $344 per person. which is less than half than what they will be receiving in Victoria, so money received from NSW taxpayers to the federal government [is] going down the Hume Highway into the Victorian government effectively subsidising some of their spending in their recent Victorian budget at the expense of New South Wales taxpayers.
Now, that’s not fair and that’s not equitable. There needs to be an urgent agreement between the federal and the state government on infrastructure spending in NSW.
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