Climate activists crash $3000-a-head Liberal fundraiser
Anti-nuclear climate activists have crashed another key Liberal party event, infiltrating the Opposition’s $3000-a-head fundraiser following Peter Dutton’s budget reply on Thursday night.
Federal Budget 2025
Dutton unveils gas plan to slash energy prices
Peter Dutton will impose an east coast gas reservation regime to secure up to 20 per cent of demand and drive-down energy prices, amid election-eve warnings that Australia’s biggest states will face gas shortfalls by July.
EBA pay rises the highest since ’97
A lucrative pay deal for 73000 Victorian nurses drove up average EBA wage rises.
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.
Hip-pocket politics: return of that 1970s show
How long do we roam aimlessly around the wilderness before the country gets back to valuing personal responsibility and aspiration above government hand-outs? We are about to find out.
Dutton unleashes inner Howard with excise cut
The Opposition Leader’s answer to Jim Chalmers’ $5-a-week tax cuts for 2026 will grab even more attention than Labor’s budget tax surprise and cost less than half as much.
Treasurer ‘blew his Lotto windfall’
Jim Chalmers has stridently rejected claims he squandered nearly $350bn of windfall revenue gains despite the budget forecasting a decade of deficits.
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.
‘Work for a rival? It’ll end in court’
Business warns the budget ban on non-compete clauses will discourage hiring and increase litigation.
Disability in dark with no details
Peak disability bodies have raised alarm with the lack of clarity in the budget around the new system of supports Labor has promised for those with milder disabilities.
Labor ‘is abandoning’ aged care: Coalition
The Coalition has accused the government of ‘forgetting’ about the aged-care sector in the wake of Tuesday’s budget, as providers raise alarm at a lack of extra funding.
ALP’s clause ban strikes sensible middle ground
Overhauling provisions that don’t appear to pass the proverbial pub test is overdue, says The Australian’s workplace editor, Ewin Hannan.
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.
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 ‘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.
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.
‘Shameful’: Treasurer blames Senate for missing budget relief for small business
As Labor’s tax cuts pass their first hurdle in the lower house, Jim Chalmers says Senate ‘shenanigans’ are holding up an extension of the instant asset write-off, which wasn’t in the budget.
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.
Whyalla ‘off-budget’ spend conceals the creep
Jim Chalmers plans to spend almost $85bn ‘off-budget’ over the next four years, adding to gross debt.
Chalmers starts poll tax-cut war as reality lurks around corner
Jim Chalmers is convinced the economy is ‘turning the corner’ but the problem is that lurking around that corner is a gang of debt collectors, repo men and Trump tariffs.
Drinkers get reason to smile: runaway price of a pint of beer to ease
Labor will freeze the tax grab on excise applied to draught beer in a much-needed shot in the arm for brewers.
This gutless budget befits our buy now, pay later mindset
The election will be fought in a netherworld of denial and obfuscation. Dig into the budget papers and it’s clear the worst is ahead of us.
Budget off-balance: Labor walks the debt and deficit tightrope
Jim Chalmers has presided over the biggest deterioration in the country’s underlying cash balance outside Covid and the global financial crisis, with a $43bn plunge into the red from a surplus last year.
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.
Why the outlook for the nation is decidedly grim
The new era is going to be tougher, starting with interest rates higher than they would otherwise need to be and a currency that will periodically be trashed by traders.
‘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.
Labor forecasts net migration fall to 225,000
Labor is forecasting a dramatic fall in net overseas migration to 225,000 as the rate of new arrivals slow and the temporary migrants who fuelled a post-pandemic population boom exit the country.
NDIS reined in but aged care left wanting
Health is a significant focus for the government as it delivers its re-election budget and is hoping cheaper medicines and more bulk billed trips to the doctor will be enough to sway votes.
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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/topics/federal-budget-2025