Federal budget 2025 analysis: who gets what

Australian Community Media

After delivering back-to-back budget surpluses, Labor Treasurer Dr. Jim Chalmers has this year handed down a budget in deficit. Watch Canberra Times political analyst Mark Kenny and political and public service reporter Brittney Levinson provide a breakdown of key commitments, surprises and omissions in the 2025-26 budget including who gets what.

Transcript

00:00It's a plan to build Australia's future, with more homes, new investments in skills

00:05and education, competition reforms and a future made in Australia.

00:10Well, Mark, we've just seen the fourth federal budget from the Albanese government and it

00:17was sort of the budget we weren't expecting to see, but...

00:20Well, normally you would say that about a budget, wouldn't you, that there are things

00:23in the budget that you don't expect to see, but this budget itself we weren't expecting

00:26to see because the government, of course, was going to go to an election without having

00:30this budget.

00:31Then there was Cyclone Alfred and of course, you know, we find this budget having been

00:36somewhat hastily prepared by the government and presumably it'll be a pretty hasty response

00:40from the opposition when they come out a couple of days hence.

00:44Absolutely.

00:45And I guess one of the other surprises we saw today was some new tax cuts.

00:48So that will be for every taxpayer, it'll be a couple of hundred dollars a year rolling

00:51out over two years.

00:52What do you make of that?

00:53Was that a bit of a surprise?

00:54I think it is a surprise.

00:56We haven't really had much in the way of discussion about that in the sort of public framing of

01:00this budget.

01:01We knew there was the $8.5 billion Medicare boost and there was going to be more money

01:04in the PBS to keep prescription medicines down, all these sorts of things, but we hadn't

01:09heard anything about income tax cuts.

01:11The government calls them modest.

01:13They are actually quite modest and it says you've got to take it sort of three increments

01:16of tax cuts together because if you don't, you're talking about some pretty insignificant

01:21amounts of money, at least as a sort of a single year benefit.

01:25I think it has been designed to wrong foot the opposition.

01:28I mean, the opposition wouldn't obviously want to be coming out with its own tax cuts,

01:32but if it tries to go further than the government, it's going to have to say where that money's

01:36coming from.

01:37Absolutely.

01:38And do you think it will, given they are modest tax cuts, do you think it will make a difference

01:41to households, particularly as we head into a federal election?

01:44Well, I think it sends a signal, right?

01:46I mean, Chalmers is trying to send a signal that the economy has turned the corner.

01:49Yes, there's all these dark clouds in the international environment, what's happening

01:54with Trump and the possibility of a trade war.

01:56You know, it's a very unpredictable world and it feels much more unstable than it has

02:00for many years.

02:02But he's also selling this message that there's something exceptional about Australia and

02:07that Australia is in a much better position.

02:10The economy's turned the corner.

02:11He talks about we're going to get to this soft landing that we have been aiming for.

02:16It's a pretty positive story.

02:17I just think there are two things about it.

02:19You know, there's the positive and the negative, the positive local story and then the negative

02:24international story.

02:25And I think whichever one of those two things resonates with voters may go a long way to

02:29deciding whether this budget is convincing or it isn't.

02:32Yeah, absolutely.

02:33And the other thing we saw in there was a very modest increase to the number of public

02:36service staffing levels.

02:39So just over 3,000 extra jobs in there.

02:42Now, this is no doubt going to be seized upon by the coalition.

02:45They've been talking about a blow to public service, whereas the Labor government says

02:49it's in the right place.

02:50Where do you think this leaves us?

02:52I mean, we're probably weeks, maybe days from a federal election being called.

02:56Well, I think the two sides, you know, really reflect the different philosophies of what

02:59government does and also the fact that there's no liberal senator in the ACT anymore, nor

03:04any real prospect of one.

03:06So you've got the coalition being pretty unrestricted in its sort of attacking of the public service.

03:11There's a bit of Trumpism in there, you know, the kind of government efficiency approach

03:15that the Dutton sort of embarked on quite quickly after Musk was appointed in the US

03:21to do the same sort of thing.

03:22And there's Labor sort of talking about services and public service jobs and so forth.

03:27So, you know, these are two different perspectives.

03:29I don't think voters really care about aggregate numbers.

03:32I do think they care about the idea of a public service that's bloated and inefficient.

03:37But I don't think we're really talking about that in any meaningful way.

03:41And what's your prediction?

03:42When do you think we're going to be heading to the polls?

03:44I think we're only days away.

03:46I think it's the weekend coming.

03:48I think...

03:49That'll be announced?

03:50Yeah.

03:51A visit to the Governor-General could well happen this coming Sunday.

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