Australia now has best-ever economy and worst-ever reporters

Coverage of the recent Federal Budget proves standards of economic reporting are at an all-time low, as Alan Austin reports.

DATA EMBEDDED in this month’s Budget confirm Australia’s finances are the envy of the world.

It is the only nation on the planet with jobless and inflation rates below 4.7%, and median wealth per adult above US$250,000 (AU$350,000). It is also the only economy with triple-A credit ratings, interest rates between 1% and 5% and government debt below 25% of gross domestic product (GDP).

More importantly, the budget outlined courageous fixes for debilitating injustices that have lingered for decades.

In most other nations, reporters would grasp the opportunity to boost national confidence by enthusiastically celebrating such excellent outcomes.

Albanese’s springboard for even greater triumphs

Last week’s courageous budget could portend an era of substantial achievement.

Instead, Australia’s newsrooms greeted the budget with headlines including:

‘Budget debacle: PM has 48 hours to backtrack or great pain awaits’ (The Australian);
‘Bereaved family to be over $7,000 worse off under Labor’s unfair and unjust new rules on discretionary trusts’ (Sky News);
‘A future, betrayed in Australia’ (Spectator);
‘Budget spending stokes fears of further rate rise pain’ (AAP/MSN);
‘The dire consequences of Labor’s ideological war on wealth’ (The Australian);
‘Treasurer facing backlash over Federal Budget’ (9 News); and
‘Chalmers has “given up” on fixing debt and deficits’ (AFR).

Those reports are riddled with malicious distortions, blatant falsehoods and vitriolic personal attacks. They ignore the multiple world-leading accomplishments.

The following seven deceptions are disseminated regularly by virtually all newsrooms. They are on continual rotation on Sky News and the other Murdoch outlets. The hacks at the Australian Financial Review churn out these fabrications regularly, as do Nine Entertainment’s other publications and radio and TV stations.

The italicised quotes are from one profoundly misguided 11-minute conversation between Mike Jeffreys at Radio 2GB and 4BC and chief economist at Macrobusiness, Leith van Onselen.

1. Living standards are falling

“Australia’s productivity stinks. We have actually had, in the last decade, amongst the very lowest productivity growth in the advanced world, which is why our living standards are not going up.”

Living standards declined from early 2021, following COVID, until mid 2023, but have risen impressively since. In 2025 and 2026, Australians have enjoyed record overseas trips per population, record car and light aircraft sales, record private school enrolments, and record proportion of retail sales on dining out, jewellery, cosmetics and other luxuries. See chart below.

(Data source: Australian Bureau of Statistics)

2. Wages are not keeping up with costs

“Real wages in Australia have fallen by about 6% in the last five years. So we’ve all gone backwards once we adjust for inflation... It’s nuts.”

There is a kernel of truth here. Real wages did decline between March 2021 and September 2023 due, of course, to Coalition policies.

Since December 2023, inflation has been 9.7%. Average wages have risen 11.7%, total wages are up 15.1%, the age pension has increased 13.3%, the dole is up 16.7%, the youth allowance is 20.3% higher and Commonwealth rent assistance is up 39.4%.

3. Australia is a high-taxing country

“Income taxes are absurdly high in Australia. Personal income taxes... are amongst the highest in the world.”

The evidence refutes this persistent lie. Australia’s top personal income tax rate is now down to a modest 45%, the same as in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and South Korea. The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Israel are all higher. Austria, France, Japan and Denmark are above 55%.

Australia’s total tax take is now among the world’s lowest. This is primarily because the goods and services tax (GST) is just 10%. Equivalent retail sales taxes are above 18% in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Ireland and elsewhere; and above 24% in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Hungary.

Chalmers' fair go budget a fair bet to charm

It is the most ambitious Federal Budget the nation has seen for a couple of decades and the strain of committing to action showed on the faces of Labor’s front bench last night.

4. Labor keeps increasing taxes

“There’s no point trying to better yourself because you’re going to get taxed more. The Government has basically opened up all these new paths to revenue, right?”

Wrong. Last month’s Fiscal Monitor, published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), shows taxation relative to GDP for 31 advanced economies.

In both 2025 and 2026, Australia ranked 26th out of the 31 on high tax rates. Only Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the USA were lower. That is better than rankings under the hapless Coalition.

5. Labor is bad for business

“It’s in the DNA of Labor. They don’t really care about small business.”

The evidence shows businesses, large, small and middle-sized, employ more people, expand more rapidly and earn more profits under Labor.

As shown here in March, total gross operating profits in all sectors except mining rose 3.7% to a record $316.2 billion in 2025. See chart below.

6. Labor spends more than the Coalition

“The Government has no incentive to cut spending because the biggest source of their revenue, personal income tax, grows every year and they can just spend more of it on waste.”

This month’s Budget Paper No.1 shows spending to GDP since 1970. Former PM Gough Whitlam spent the lowest of all PMs, averaging just 19.6% of GDP. Anthony Albanese averages 25.2%, which is lower than Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. The highest spending by far was Scott Morrison, who averaged 27.5%.

7. Business investment is declining

“We’ve got historically low business investment, we’ve got very low productivity growth.”

The germ of truth here is that investment collapsed between 2013 and 2021 — under the hopelessly incompetent Coalition. See chart below.

Apart from brief periods of severe global downturns, business investment since 1992 has increased under all governments — except those of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison. It is steadily expanding again under Albanese.

The questions these incessant deceptions raise are these: Are Australia’s economics reporters too stupid to know what is actually happening, or do they know but choose to deceive?
Do they realise how destructive they are to national social cohesion?

Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001 and Bluesky @alanaustin.bsky.social.