News & Insights

The Treasurer wants Australians to read his fifth budget as a triumph of fairness – a rebalancing that lifts workers and Millennials by clipping the wings of Boomer wealth. On the budget papers themselves, it is something more modest and more freighted: a sweeping reset of the tax base built largely on bracket creep, an income tax offset of roughly $5 a week, and a politically charged overhaul of property tax that, whatever its merits, was not taken to the 2025 election.

At a point in the economic cycle when budget repair should be easy, with unemployment low, wage growth strong, and commodity prices high, this Budget fails to address rising debt over the forward estimates, with gross debt to exceed $1 trillion by year end.