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.
As Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered a low-key yet powerful vision – and revision – of Australia’s financial future, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher looked anxious, while others just nodded profusely, and Prime Minister Albanese would have radiated a sunny smile if his frown were turned ... well, you know.
And well might they worry. As Sarah Ferguson said on ABC 7.30 in her 8 pm interview with the Treasurer, Labor has “flagrantly” and “openly” broken several election commitments in this Budget. One earlier election promise, after all – over the carbon tax – brought down PM Julia Gillard, even though she never even brought in an actual carbon tax.
Chalmers, playing around with the negative gearing and capital gains tax rorts exploited mostly by baby boomers, is playing with the same sort of fire that led Bill Shorten to lose the so-called "unlosable" election. And that was merely by plugging a small tax rort that hardly anyone had even heard of: the dreaded dividend imputation.
And Jim Chalmers wasn’t even denying it, telling Ferguson, essentially, that the facts had changed so the Government had changed its mind. It was very Keynesian. It was inspiring. It was brave. One feels it was very much Chalmers’ Budget and not many others — although Health Minister Butler appeared happy, as well he might be, with around $36 billion pushed into his portfolio (via hospital, Medicare and cheaper medicines).
If it all comes off and the economy stays strong, Dr Jim from Brissie will probably become prime minister not too long after the next election. If it doesn’t, his career might be in tatters.
It’s edge-of-your-seat stuff for a Party that has reduced the small target strategy into the realms of the microscopic. Daring is not grumpy Albo’s forte. But Dr Jim Chalmers is a different sort of leader. There is a whiff of Keating about him, a hint of Gough, but without the acidity or hauteur.
Chief of staff to Treasurer Wayne Swan and executive director of the Chifley Research Centre in a previous life, 48-year-old, non-boomer Chalmers is still a man of the people. He showed quiet confidence in his well-reasoned address that these changes are good changes and that they should work. Only the malign, Murdoch-led, biased mainstream media, running successful scare campaigns and even more ill global economic fortunes than the Budget "uncertainty" envisaged, could foil Australia’s financial future and the nation’s new de facto leader.
And so, try though she did to focus on “broken promises”, which Ferguson described as “blindingly obvious”, Chalmers remained steadfast and calm:
Fundamentally, this Budget was a choice: Do we use what’s happening in the Middle East as a reason to do less?
Or do we understand that all of this global volatility and uncertainty is a reason to accelerate reform? To act with more decisiveness and more urgency?
And we decided on the latter path and I’m proud that we did.
The key changes are centred on reform of capital gains, negative gearing and discretionary trusts, all of which have largely contributed to rising inequality over many years.Each of these areas has been protected by conservative governments and media fear-mongering, such that Labor governments have avoided any contact, lest the invisible hex they carried – that led to the fall of the Rudd/Gillard governments and kept the ALP out of office for three terms – should re-emerge.
Even the Albanese Government promised it would not change those structures last time around, as Ferguson was so fond of mentioning.
However, a key point about the timing of these changes is, as Chalmers pointed out in a roundabout way, that times have changed. The majority of voters are no longer mainly boomers, with Australians aged under 44 now making up more than a third of all eligible voters in many key seats.
This fact is not only largely ignored by the establishment media but by the Federal Opposition, who are still flailing around in the dreary depths of their halcyon boomer-dominated days, when it was okay for treasurers to blame “smashed avo” for the housing crisis. Or to tell young people to "get a good job that pays good money", rather than taking responsibility for their economic policies, which deliberately favoured older and wealthier people.
As the Grattan Institute's Aruna Sathanapally pointed out on the Insiders Budget Night Special last night (12 May):
A third of capital gains [tax benefits] go to people who are the top 1% of Australian earners... and over half of the gains go to the highest 10%.
Then when you come to trusts, ... only 5% of Australians receive income from these discretionary trusts and they're really concentrated in the wealthiest 10% of households.
Overall, Chalmers' Budget is one of change and hope, though, of course, there are still big gaping holes in areas such as a carbon tax — perhaps still a step too risqué for Labor under Albanese.
Ferguson’s last question was particularly pointed, although based on an inaccurate premise, that this Labor Government has seen “Australia’s weakest productivity growth in 60 years”.
Chalmers replied:
“Hang on a minute, the weakest decade for productivity in the last 60 years was the Coalition decade.”
Incorrect accusations notwithstanding, Ferguson ended the interview with:
“Do you accept that even if these changes are very well received among young voters, no one will believe a promise from this Government ever again?”
Cool and composed to the last, Chalmers replied that he was happy to explain why the changes were made rather than have to explain why business as usual had been maintained.
However, the Treasurer’s earlier comment is perhaps the most promising:
I think people care more about substantive change…
We have to make the 'fair go' the defining characteristic of our country in future generations ,not just in past generations.
If people really do care more about substantive change, it's possible these bold Budget moves may be welcomed by the changing faces of Australia's voters. Independent Australia is confident that Chalmers' fifth Budget is set to propel Australia towards a more equitable and prosperous nation and Chalmers to even greater heights.
This editorial was originally published as part of the Independent Australia weekly newsletter. Subscribe to IA to access all our work from as little as $1.15 per week and help power our journalism in 2026.
Follow IA founder Dave Donovan on X/Twitter @davrosz and Bluesky @davrosz.bsky.social and managing editor Michelle Pini on Twitter @vmp9 and Bluesky @michellepini.bsky.social.
Follow Independent Australia on Twitter at @independentaus, on Facebook HERE and on Instagram HERE.
Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.
