A $10 tax cut for you … and almost $15k a week for the Adelaide Zoo pandas

You score a $10.30 tax cut – enough for a weekly Maccas meal – while our new pandas at the zoo will receive almost $15k a week to eat for the next decade.

Giant Panda Xing Qiu makes his public debut at Adelaide Zoo. 21st January 2025 Picture: Brett Hartwig

A tax cut of $5.15 a week in July next year, rising to $10.30 in 2027 — enough for a six nugget McHappy Meal in today’s money — is the election sweetener Jim Chalmers hopes will win Labor the May poll.

The new panda couple at Adelaide zoo were far bigger winners in the federal budget, and were given a bamboozling $14,615 a week, from this year.

Aside from small tax cuts there were other measures to attract voters, including already announced electricity bill aid, more bulk billing, cheap drugs, childcare help and HECS cuts.

A large chunk of the cash for our new pandas will be spent on providing a bottomless bamboo buffet as the male of the pair, Xing Qiu, reportedly chews through up to 30kg a day.

The pandas are on loan from China under a 10-year agreement, costing around $15m.

Budget papers confirm the federal government will contribute $760,00 a year – or $14,615 a week – until mid 2034.

Giant Panda, Xing Qiu was a big winner in the 2025 federal budget. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Hailing from the city of Chengdu, Xing Qiu recently turned four, while his counterpart Yi Lan is three years old.

They arrived on a 29C day in mid December, after a 15-hour journey and including a stopover in Malaysia.

They replaced Wang Wang and Fu Ni, who arrived in 2009 but never produced offspring.

The original duo have returned to live at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China’s Sichuan province.

A dedicated bamboo farm was planted in 2009 to feed Adelaide’s black and white tourist attractions, fuelled by recycled water from the Bolivar Wastewater Treatment Plant.

SA Water’s senior water expert Dr Lionel Ho said Xing Qiu consumes 30kg of bamboo a day, which is about 10kg more than the average panda’s bamboo consumption.

The name Xing Qiu means “autumn star”, while Yi Lan means “ideally blissful”.

South Australia is home to the only two giant pandas in the southern hemisphere.

Originally published as A $10 tax cut for you … and almost $15k a week for the Adelaide Zoo pandas