What if you ran your household budget like Jim Chalmers?
The Treasurer’s latest federal budget was another big-spending monster, and carries a key lesson for Aussie individuals.
Federal Budget
What to do when your health insurance bills get out of control
The ‘3.7 per cent’ rise in private health insurance premiums is misleading as many funds have pushed across much larger increases. Here’s a guide for when it all gets too much.
Something-for-all budget avoids the hard discussions
The budget sticks to the old business model: doling out more goodies for just about everyone, paid for with borrowed money.
Blatant vote-buying exposes fiscal woes
For our long-term financial future, Australia needs a sustainable and responsible fiscal plan that reflects greater budgetary control whereby spending is needs-based.
Cheap petrol tank versus Jim’s cuppa: Dutton to halve fuel excise
Peter Dutton will attempt to counter Labor’s marginal tax cuts by committing to halving fuel excise rates in a move the Coalition believe will convince voters on greater cost-of-living relief.
Bracket creep wipes out Labor’s tax cuts
Why taxpayers are set to lose more than $5000 a year despite the tax cut handed down in the federal budget.
‘Irresponsible’ budget slammed by business chiefs
Labor’s pre-election budget has failed to hit the mark and senior business leaders such as Wesfarmers chief Rob Scott say it was a missed opportunity to boost productivity.
ASX soars for fifth day in a row
The local sharemarket has secured its fifth consecutive day of gains on Wednesday as optimistic investors rallied in 10 of 11 sectors.
The budget has ‘more funding for pandas than tech’
The federal budget isn’t black and white – unless you’re a panda – prompting one tech entrepreneur to bemoan there’s more funds set aside for Australia’s Chinese guests than to support start-ups.
The federal budget graph you need to see
Despite a resources rush, Labor has presided over the biggest deterioration in the budget outside an economic crisis or a pandemic.
Retail shares rally in post-budget optimism
Subsidies and tax cuts announced in the federal budget could support the outlook for consumer spending, with some analysts looking at the retail sector as a potential beneficiary.
Unexpected winners from federal budget
The furry creatures arrived in Australia in December and will enjoy a $15k lifestyle funded by the Commonwealth at their Adelaide Zoo home.
‘Eye candy’: ‘Election’ budget slammed
Other than the Medicare investment, there is a general consensus the federal budget falls short and leaves a lot of Australians behind.
Chalmers styles himself as a contemporary Keating … but he’s no PJK
Where Paul Keating lowered the top tax rate from 60 to 49 per cent in 1985, Jim Chalmers takes two percentage points off the bottom rate – a comparison that points to the gulf in class between the two.
Labor starts tax-cut poll sales pitch on back foot
So far, Labor is on the back foot because its individual tax cut is too small, the total cost is too big and the money simply isn’t there.
Labor ‘luvvies’ the life of the budget after-party
Is there such a thing as a free meal? Labor’s loyalists made the pilgrimage to Canberra to hear Jim Chalmers latest budget and mingle late into the night. Here’s who we found at the soiree.
‘Delulu’: Albo’s Gen-Z reply to tax cut fury
The Prime Minister has branded the opposition “delulu with no solulu” after scathing criticism of his government’s proposed income tax cuts.
Election gamble reveals the death of ambition
Labor is now borrowing further from the future to buy an election, ignoring calls for spending control and delaying repair to the budget even further to achieve it.
The one word Chalmers didn’t say (it begins with C)
You heard what Jim Chalmers said but what did he really mean? We’ve parsed the jargon — and found some surprising omissions.
Nation sinks deeper in red as Labor pitches for votes
Major progress in improving defence is kicked down the road again.
All eyes on Dutton after short-term election budget
Peter Dutton needs to come out swinging against this budget and give the voters a choice between policies designed for Australia to climb out of its financial hole or continue to dig the hole deeper.
‘We can’t see the vision’: corporate leaders bemoan policy drought
Business leaders have criticised the Albanese government’s fourth federal budget for its lack of vision, ‘modest’ measures and lack of support for small businesses.
When poll chips are down, hold the reform
Labor has delivered a budget that fails Australia’s needs. It is the budget of a flawed government.
Labor’s cradle-to-grave push may bury bottom line
What was once a targeted system of support for pensions and unemployment benefits is now a new social order where taxpayers fund demand-driven services such as childcare and the NDIS.
Green metals? Regions cop a mixed bag
Regional Australians will receive a share of nationwide defence, road and health spending, but critics claim key projects have been neglected.
Trump’s tariff war impact ‘modest’: Treasury
Donald Trump’s impending trade war will stall Australia’s economic growth, Jim Chalmers claims, despite forecasts barely having changed since a month after the US President was elected.
Schools find extra funds are Gonski
Schools have missed out on extra ‘Gonski funding’ after the Labor failed to include promised new spending in the pre-election budget.
‘Cruel hoax’: New tax cut blasted
A $5-a-week tax cut from the Albanese government has backfired, with industry panning the move and the Opposition labelling it nothing but a ‘cruel hoax’.
‘No one saw this coming’: Our experts give their verdicts
Labor has notched three immediate victories and created a big challenge for Peter Dutton — but productivity, debt and spending are the elephants in the room.
How big is your tax cut? $5 a week to help ease cost-of-living burden
Labor has unveiled a $5 per week tax cut as the centrepiece of its cost-of-living measure, which will deliver just $268 in savings in its first year beginning in July 2026.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/topics/federal-budget