What Australians want from today’s Federal Budget

IT’S the big thing news.com.au readers struggle with every day. But indications are it’s not something that will be fixed in today’s Budget.

IT’S the thing news.com.au readers struggle with every day.

But with proposed changes to negative gearing already ruled out by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, will the government do anything in today’s Federal Budget to make it easier for people to buy their first home?

The nation’s renters will be waiting with bated breath to find out how the government plans to tackle the rising cost of housing as Treasurer Scott Morrison hands down his first Budget tonight.

Along with housing affordability, taxing the rich, adequate superannuation, healthcare and education are shaping up to be hot issues.

And after Treasurer Scott Morrison yesterday confirmed plans to tinker with superannuation rules, those approaching retirement age nervously await the details of how their nest eggs will be affected.

Younger Australians will be looking out for how the Budget will deal with the nation’s spiralling higher education debt, predicted to blow out by 560 per cent to $180 billion over the next decade.

The government is again considering the unpopular options of lowering the income threshold before workers are required to start repaying their loans, and hiking fees.

And families with school-aged children will run a fine-tooth comb through the education budget, after the Coalition confirmed it will not fully fund the Gonski plan, promising only to plough an extra $1.2 billion into schools over the next four years.

News.com.au spoke to readers from each of these interest groups, who shared their hopes and concerns for the 2016 Federal Budget.

PROPERTY DREAM ON HOLD

As a professional couple in their early thirties, lawyer Mark Silberer and project engineer Leena Thavisin are keen to gain a foothold in the property market.

But the pair are concerned about whether they will be able to afford the kind of place they’d like to live in.

Having rented in inner Melbourne for years, a move to the outer suburbs does not appeal.

“I don’t want to spend an hour and a half commuting each day,” Mr Silberer said.

“Housing affordability has gotten out of control. Prices in the inner city are now 12 or 13 times higher than annual income, whereas for our parents it was four or five times. This has to be addressed.”

Melbourne couple Leena Thavisin and Mark Silberer are concerned about housing affordability.

Mr Silberer supported a crackdown on capital gains tax and reforms to negative gearing, hinted at but then abandoned by the government last month.

“Negative gearing raises house prices for younger people and Baby Boomers are pricing us out of the market,” Mr Silberer said.

“Increasing foreign investment for non-personal residential purposes is also having an impact.”

He said the prospect of being locked into high mortgage repayments made getting onto the property ladder a difficult decision.

“Everyone’s got friends who say ‘I’d love to give up my awful job’ … I just don’t want to live like that.”

But the pull of the Australian dream means the pair are hoping to buy “in the next few years”.

“I’d really like to get in now, but I don’t want to go and buy something that isn’t going to meet my needs,” Mr Silberer said.

HANDS OFF HECS

For Sydney artist and retail worker Renee Oldfield, 27, Coalition threats to whack interest onto student debt — and potentially collect HECS repayments from the dead — failed to impress.

“I definitely think about my HECS debt, even though it’s not that much since I’ve got an arts degree,” she said.

But pressure to repay it is unhelpful when, like thousands of young graduates, Ms Oldfield is yet to step into a secure, permanent job with a pathway for career advancement.

After graduating from the Sydney College of the Arts last year, she’s found casual work in retail, with financial security and home ownership remaining distant goals.

Sydney’s Renee Oldfield, 27, wants big companies to pay their fair share of tax.

“I’m worried about housing affordability and I think about it a lot,” she said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford to buy a house in Sydney because it’s so expensive.”

Even sharehousing was pricey, she said, with many of her friends forking out $250 a week for a “half decent” room.

Funding for mental health services and arts education were at the top of Ms Oldfield’s budget wish list, and she called for the interest-free HECS scheme to be preserved.

And wealthy Australians should be made to pay their fair share of tax, she said.

“I think we should be taxing big companies more and putting the money into positive things like health and education,” Ms Oldfield said.

“It makes me feel really angry that everyday people have to pay taxes and big companies that make millions of dollars don’t.”

RETIREMENT DELAYED

With “nowhere near” enough super to retire on, Melbourne digital marketing consultant Michelle Nicol expects to be working for many years to come.

The 52-year-old, who is self employed, wants to ensure her nest egg is secure, and opposes any change to superannuation that would penalise middle-income small business owners like herself.

“I’m hoping that there aren’t going to be a raft of changes around superannuation that will make it difficult for people who are approaching retirement, particularly as a woman,” Ms Nichol said.

“They certainly shouldn’t treat everyone with super in their fifties as someone who has enough to retire on, particularly if we’re going to get docked until we’re in our seventies.

“With an ageing population expected to live longer, and an employment culture that doesn’t value older people, it does not bode well.”

Michelle Nicol is worried about her retirement nest egg.

Ms Nicol argued that the government should focus on examining the tax affairs of the super wealthy and “ensure they pay their fair share of tax, particularly corporations”.

“Why are individual taxpayers bearing the burden of tax paid in this country, when they have very little resources available to them?” she said. “The super wealthy have many other avenues available to them.”

Ms Nicol also called for a funding boost for public health, saying she did not support a system that forced people to buy expensive private health cover.

“I opted out of health insurance,” she said. “I’d rather put money aside and pay my healthcare fees — that’s cheaper than the rising cost of health insurance.”

EDUCATION IS A PRIORITY

With twins aged 10 years old, the issue closest to the heart of Sydney lawyer Sarah, 44, is education.

The Croydon resident said she was not looking for any Budget sweeteners for herself or her husband Dan, an IT worker.

While the government has suggested bracket creep is a big issue, Sarah does not think tax cuts are a major priority. She’s also not concerned about government debt.

“My main concern is around education and the I feel like it’s being used as a political football at the moment,” she said.

“It looks like the Coalition is dumping Gonski, which I think is a pity.”

Sarah and her husband Dan with their daughters Ella and Sophie.

She said the government should fund Gonski fully but acknowledged that the country needed to live within its means.

In the end, whether she supports the government’s reduced funding package (it has promised $1.2 billion in extra funding, less than the $4.5 billion Labor has committed to) will largely depend on what else is in the Budget.

“They are also talking about tax cuts for middle income earners and small business but are we cutting the right things to provide that funding?” she said.

“It’s sad to see politics being played with things that are very important like education, hopefully we will get something that will actually help the kids.”

[e-mail]

Originally published as What Australians want from today’s Federal Budget