All a right to go.
From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's our special episode fresh from the Federal Budget Lockup.
Welcome to the Budget twenty twenty four to twenty five lock Up. I'm not bringing mobile phones or smart watches into the lockup or gets documents, just to make sure that not publish, transmit, release, or disclose in any manner budget information until the embargo.
Is left it.
We'll take you behind the scenes as the Australians journalists break down the budget inside Treasuries secure embargoed lockup at Federal Parliament in Canberra.
So the money's really going out yah of a productivity?
Yes, probably low balling, and will break down the spin to work out what this budget means for your business and household. There's a lot to read in this Federal budget and luckily our experts have done the hard work for you. You can check out their frank analysis right now at the Australian dot com dot a.
U Kelly, thank you, Thank you, Patrick.
Brazie Lewis.
My name's Green Brown.
A bigger than expected nine point three billion dollar surplus this year, followed by deficits over the coming four years. That's the top line from Jim Chalmer's third federal budget. Today, we explore why the Federal government is raking in more cash and spending much more than expected, and what it all means for the government's chances at the next election and all of our futures.
The greatest in the galaxy.
These are my daughters character me and for father's it's the least true thing that you'll read today.
Well, we want to talk to your.
Walking around the budget lockup inside Federal Parliament on Tuesday, Jim Charmer was wearing socks chosen by his daughters which said Galaxy's greatest Dad. The Treasurer was in a very good mood, you d allous, And why shouldn't he be in a good mood? The Treasurer feels this is a budget that's going to achieve one of his biggest goals, squashing inflation while helping households manage the cost of living. That's a huge challenge, handing out Lolly's while preventing a
giant sugar rush. Dennis Anahan is The Australian's National editor. Dennis, what sort of budget is this?
Well, it's a parachute budget. Clear this is if the Labor government wants to hit the election silk this year instead of when the election is due by May twenty five, they can.
This is Jim Chalmer's third budget in the Albanese government, and the Prime Minister has hinted there'll be another budget in March to set the government up for the next election, which is due to be held by May. Paul Kelly is The Australian's Editor at large.
This is an audacious, high risk budget which exposes the true character of the Labor Party and the fact that it's dominated by the Treasurer, Jim Charmers. There's a conflict between economics and politics. This has been the Treasurer's dilemma. It's the dilemma of the Albanese government. The great risk is that the government has opted for significant spending increases over the next couple of years. What will that mean
for the economy and inflation? That is the great trap, and the government's fortunes will rest on how that plays out.
A tax cut for every taxpayer, wages growing in every industry, a better deal for every working parent, a fair ago at every checkout.
Before every budget, the politicians drip out the good things they want to shout about and the nasty bits they want to get out of the way. Early we already knew the government had dramatically rejigged the so called Stage three tax cuts to ensure more money went to lower
paid Australians. We knew there'd be an eleven billion dollar housing package, three hundred and thirty billion on new defense spending, two hundred and twenty seven million for twenty nine new urgent care Medicare clinics, and a big spend on what the government's calling Future Made in Australia, supporting manufacturing and production on shore. We knew the government would be wiping three billion dollars in student debt for over three million Australians.
Here's the new stuff. The Future Made in Australia spend will be twenty two point seven billion dollars, a huge increase on what the government had already announced, and there's an extra seven point eight billion in cost of living relief. The biggest components of that are one point nine billion dollars in Commonwealth rent assistance that'll benefit nearly one million households, and there will be three point five billion dollars to
cut energy bills for every household. As charm has explained during his budget speech to Parliament, as soon as the lock up ended.
From July one, Australians will receive an energy rebate of three hundred dollars and one million small businesses will get a little bit more.
That's a huge amount of money to pump into the economy, but pumping money into the economy usually pushes inflation up. More spending equals prices going up, and that leads to the Reserve Bank trying to squash inflation by raising interest rates. That's what the Treasurer is trying to deal with.
It's a bit of a trick. It's an accounting trick if you like. He says himself, housing and energy are the big pressures. What he is doing is his saying we are going to give every household, it's not means tested, every household three hundred dollars rebate off their electricity. Now, his argument is that you will actually reduce inflation because what you're not giving people cash, you're actually reducing the bill.
So statistically, when the ABS looks at energy bills, there will be three hundred dollars cheaper and he's used taxpayers money to do it.
So instead of getting a check for three hundred dollars from the government, my three hundred dollars will go to my energy provider.
You're not going to get a cash bonus where you can run off and buy a color television set. It will be absolutely tied to your energy bill. And that's why it will reduce inflation, the Treasury says by half a percentage point by Christmas. Same on housing, they reduce the cost of housing of rental through the rebate and then that reduces the rental headline figure. So that's how they do it, is they use our money to then say, well, we've cut inflation for you.
By the way, Dennis has been covering budgets for more than four decades and one of his specialties is digging through the papers for tidbits.
Every budget. I love to look at the Risks pages. There are all sorts of things there, you know, possibility of another outbreak of cane toads or whatever. But the classic this year was the fact that we're going to have to take out one hundred million dollars in insuperant in case an Australian rocket falls on a foreign person overseas, do we have any rockets? Well, I don't know if we have any rockets. I just hope they stay in the air.
One of the big questions the journos in the press gallery were asking as they picked apart the budget is when's the next election going to be. Australia has three year terms for federal governments, but that's a maximum. Prime ministers can request the Governor General call an election anytime. That means Anthony Albanezi could bring on the election anytime between now and May twenty twenty five. Budgets have a cycle. The first budget of a new government is usually tough.
That's where governments make all the hard cuts they've been itching to do. The cartoonists for papers like The Australian tend to draw the treasurer as a grim reaper slashing his sive. The closer to an election we get, the more governments try to make voters feel good about them. By the time an election is looming, the treasure returns into the easter buney, everybody gets some chocolate.
There's seven point eight billion dollars in new cost of living relief measures. These are measures on top of the tax cuts we already knew were coming, and what we've been able to discover by talking to the Treasury officials in budget lock up is that the large bulk of that money, three point three billion dollars of it, will actually be spent next financial year, coincidentally, the year of
the election. This is the Australian's Rosy Lewis Anthony Albanesi and Jim Chalmers are being more generous to all Australians during an election year. We now have all households targeted with the energy rebates, and they want to show that they understand cost of living is biting for everyone, not just low income households, which were really the focus of last year's budget.
The other big thing the government has had to tackle in this budget is migration, which has blown out since the pandemic. What have we learned in this budget about what their plan is.
Interestingly, the net overseas migration number for the twenty three to twenty four financial year has been revised up to three hundred and ninety five thousand, but the government still wants to achieve its goal of halving the number to two hundred and sixty thousand next financial year, so they're going to have to achieve a much steeper decrease in that number. We've learned in recent days. The way they're going to do that is through a clamp down on international students.
Is that primarily a cost of living thing? Do you think rosy? Is that why they care so much about the migration number.
They are being very careful to show that they understand migrants do impact on housing stock, so they're ensuring that universities actually commit to delivering more student accommodation. So if universities can't show they have somewhere for international and local students to live, then foreign students won't be able to come in.
This is the kind of analysis in journalism. The Australian subscribers get twenty four to seven a subscription is a lot cheaper than your energy bill and we promise it won't push inflation up. Join us at the Australian dot com dot au. We'll be back after this. Apart from the cost of living, the biggest issue for most Australians right now is violence against women. After a series of horrific murders of women allegedly perpetrated by the men who
were supposed to love and protect them. Governments at all levels have scrambled to react with everything from bail law reforms to new spending to tackle the problem of violent pornography.
So every year the budget includes something called the Women's Budget. Now that is really the government's ambition for closing the gender pay gap when it comes to women and achieving equity most often.
Sarah Eisen is a political reporter with The Australian.
This year, there's a really marked focus billions when it comes to research, better resourcing for the Office of Women, including more staff that will focus specifically on gen violence. There'll be more information sharing, There'll be mechanisms to look at which prevention measures actually work. There'll be advisory committees with victim survivors on them. The government really wants to show that it's doing something when it comes to this problem.
The government's already announced the extension of something that was a trial where women who are in a desperate situation can access five thousand dollars of emergency support. How much is that going to cost.
It's going to cost nearly one billion dollars. It will be indexed as well. That means as inflation goes up, the payment will increase at the same pace, so women will get up to five thousand dollars. That includes fifteen hundred dollars in cash and the rest will be in services and support to be able to escape violence. This is a big part of making sure women can leave really dangerous situations.
So asure, can I just check these Future Made in Austrailia a gender extent.
Before this budget lock up, we knew Future Made in Australia was a big priority for the government, but we didn't have a good idea of exactly what they'd be spending on. Now we know it's twenty two billion, including something the critical minerals industry had been lobbying for, a seven billion dollar tax break for the companies that produce rare earths like lithium and nickel, which have been struggling
against a wave of minerals produced much cheaper overseas. There will also be new tax incentives for the production of green hydrogen. Joe Kelly is The Australian's National Affairs editor. It'll involve giving tax breaks to billionaires to extremely wealthy companies in the resources sector. How do you think this will go over with voters?
I think it's an experiment. I think it's a labor experiment which expands the role of government and I think how it goes over is going to depend on how successful it is. I think it will be a long term test of Labour's economic credentials and this new vision Jim Charmers has of forging a new economy, and I might also add I think there are political risks as well,
because this will require least two tranches of legislation. Jim said that today and the production tax credits will require legislation too, so that will depend on how the Parliament lines up, including the Coalition and the Greens. The Coalition, I think had been a bit skeptical about this agenda and if they opt out, if they're opposed to this new economic vision, well then Labor will be left to negotiate with the Greens, and I think that that might be something that turns voters off.
The Australian's Troy Branston, who's our resident expert in the Labor Party's history and philosophy, has spoken to the Treasurer at length. Troy the Treasurer was wearing his Galaxy's Greatest Dad socks. Is he the Galaxy's greatest treasurer.
Well, I think old treasurers want to be the greatest. Look, this is a big personal moment for the treasurer. The budget is the biggest event on the political calendar every year when there's not an election, and he really is driving the government's economic strategy. Bit I think also it's political strategy. So he's very invested personally in this. He wants to make his mark, but he also wants to see the government re elected because one day, as we all know, he wants to be Prime minister.
The government has just a one seat majority and the government's dealt with a lot of challenges in this first term. Is there a chance that Jim Chalmers would take the opportunity to move on the leadership before the next election.
Look, you can never say never in politics, but I think it would be extremely unlikely. I think Labor has learnt the lessons of its last period in office, and also the coalition's period in office as well. I don't think there's any appetite to change the leader right now, but there's a number of people jockeying for it. But if you want to be a leadership contender, it's based
on your performance in your current role. So if the economy goes pear shaped and this does lead to an increase in inflation and the Reserve Bank pulls that trigger and puts up interest rates again, and this will be extremely damaging for Jim Chums. So there's a lot at stake for him personally, for the government, and I think for the nation as well.
He came into the job talking quite openly about not wanting to just occupy the chair, wanting to be a reforming treasurer. Has he turned out to be one?
Yeah, Look, it's interesting. It's still a work in progress. But you know, in the opening of his budget speech he said it's a budget about the here and now and also the decades to come. Now, that's a tricky thing to get across. And he's come up with what he told me was a new model for economic prosperity and growth, which is about harnessing public and private investment in some of the new critical drivers of the economy and to take benefit of the transition to a net
zero world. Now. I do think though, that he missed an opportunity to really make his name as a treasurer by not sticking with budget surpluses. You know, he has delivered two budget surpluses now in a row. The last treasure to do that was Pretty Costello and before him, Paul Keating, so they're pretty rare, but he really had an opportunity to stick with that fiscal discipline. Instead, he's forecasting one hundred billion dollars worth of deficits over the
Ford estimate period and he's got increased spending. But really he could have made a political and economic virtue out of more fiscal restraint. That's what Paul Keating did, That's what Peter Costello did, and he had such a good opportunity because he had two budget surpluses. But now I think he squandered that and so he's not able to claim that mantle of fiscal responsibility and prudence, which he also wants.
We'd love to know what you think of the budget and have our experts answer your questions. On Wednesday night, May fifteen, got a post budget online event with Judith Sloan, Jeff Chambers, Sky News is Edward Boyd and Ross Greenwood and me talking about what it all means. It's brought to you by the Australian Plus. Visit the Australianplus dot com dot a u slash budget. For more information and to register now,