Budget 2024 as it happened: Treasurer reveals $3.5b energy subsidy plan to fight inflation

With the treasurer’s speech now finished, we will now turn to our coverage of the budget documents.

What’s in the budget? Here’s a handy three-minute guide prepared by federal politics reporter Angus Thompson.

How will the budget affect you? Take a look at federal politics reporters Rachel Clun and Olivia Ireland’s breakdown of different stakeholders – from students to retirees.

So, are you a winner or a loser? Find out with national affairs editor James Massola’s full guide to who has come out on top in tonight’s budget.

For the cold hard numbers, head to the budget explained in seven charts from Josh Gordon and Craig Butt.

If it’s analysis you’re looking for, Ross Gittins is here, Peter Hartcher is here, Jacqueline Maley is here and a summary of our expert verdicts on the budget is here.

And finally, if you’re more of a visual learner, our video team have put together this slick summation of the key points:

This is where we’ll leave our live coverage of the 2024 federal budget.

Thanks so much for joining us as we unpacked treasurer Jim Chalmers’ third budget.

Head to the recap post pinned at the top of the blog to find all our coverage, with more to come tomorrow.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

State premiers would have been carefully watching the announcements in the federal budget, and while there was good news for Victoria, the budget was mostly bad news for NSW.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s state political editor Alexandra Smith didn’t mince her words, writing that the Minns government’s worst budget fears have been realised.

The drop in NSW’s GST payments is greater than estimated by the NSW government, which had been warning the state would be $1.65 billion worse off in 2024-25, the biggest single-year decline in GST for the state since the tax was introduced in 2000. The budget confirmed NSW will, in fact, be $1.9 billion worse off.

As for Victoria, The Age’s state political editor Annika Smethurst reports that the state will receive billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and bulk-billing clinics.

She also reports that the state’s unexpected GST boost will stabilise in the next financial year due to a decline in consumption and an improvement in Victoria’s relative position compared to other states.

As the dust settles on the third budget of the Albanese government and its treasurer Jim Chalmers, we want to know what you think.

Vote in our poll below or leave a comment to let us know your thoughts.

Some of the early criticism of the federal budget’s headline spend, a $300 energy bill rebate for every household, has focused on the lack of means testing for the scheme.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers during the budget address.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Independent senator Jacqui Lambie was one such critic, who accused the government of “chucking money left, right and centre”.

And economists warned that Labor could not “subsidise its way to lower inflation” because the budget spending would flow through to demand and put pressure on the Reserve Bank to keep interest rates higher for longer.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers was asked about this earlier on ABC’s 7.30, and he said it was about simplifying the delivery of cost of living relief.

The simplest way to deliver this relief is via energy bills. Once you go beyond providing it to people on pensions and payments who were our priority in the last budget, then it makes sense to go broadly.

Some of the cost of living package is broad. Every household gets energy bill relief and every taxpayer gets a tax cut and there’s targeted cost of living help.”

Crossbenchers Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock have given their verdicts on the federal budget.

Senators David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Independent Tasmanian senator Lambie took issue with the lack of means testing for the $300 energy bill rebate:

Just like I’m not comfortable with people like myself and the super rich out there that got a $4500 tax cut. All you poor people out there, I tell you what, and we’re getting the $300, not means tested?

Are we back in COVID days? We’re just chucking money, left, right and centre. You’re too lazy to do some means testing. We don’t need $300. I can assure you.”

ACT senator Pocock set his sights on what he thinks is missing from the Future Made in Australia package:

I think there’s a real missed opportunity when it comes to manufacturing things like solar cells here in Australia. We’re so reliant on China. We have all the materials to do that. We have companies wanting to do that and yet we haven’t seen tax credits for that.

The other bit I think that’s missing from the Future Made in Australia is household electrification. It is such a huge opportunity to be spurring investment and investing in companies that are working in that space. If we can lead it here in Australia we can export it to the world.”

A titbit you might have missed within the budget announcements is the return of compulsory student unionism.

Under Labor’s federal budget, every student enrolled at university will have to pay for student unions as part of the costs factored into their studies on campus.

The government will force universities to pass on 40 per cent of the non-academic, services and amenities fees to student unions and associations in a move that goes part-way to rewinding Howard-era laws banning compulsory student unionism.

The measure, sure to be opposed by the Coalition and be applauded by unions, is one of several in the budget responding to the Australian Universities Accord, which urged the government to protect student organisations by guaranteeing them a cut of student service and amenities fees.

Greens leader Adam Bandt is the next politician to drop by the ABC, speaking to David Speers on the budget edition of Insiders.

Bandt said the announcements are “Band-Aid measures”, using similar language to shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, who earlier called the budget “a Band-Aid for a bullet hole”.

Bandt continued:

Labor’s Band-Aid budget is a betrayal of people who are doing it tough and a betrayal of renters, mortgage holders, women, students.

Labor’s budget backs unlimited rent increases, supermarket prices are going to continue to rise. Labor’s tightening your belts while letting big corporations and billionaires run wild. There’s a lot more that could have been done to tackle the cost of living crisis.”

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has called the budget “inflationary” in the Coalition’s first response.

This was his takeaway during an interview with the ABC’s 7.30 program:

When you plan to spend money it is inflationary. We have a 16 per cent increase in spending over two years and the economy is only going out close to 7 per cent, so that is spending growing at double the pace of the economy, and that takes you to a $43 billion structural deficit in two years’ time.

That is inflation.

When you have $4 of spending for every dollar of savings, you are not fighting the inflation dragon – that homegrown inflation – that so many Australians are suffering with.”

When asked what the Coalition would have done to fight inflation if it was in government, Taylor was vague on details, but said it would have driven more supply in the energy sector and shown restraint by “making sure the fiscal rules are in place to fight inflation.”

That means having a rule in the budget where you grow the economy faster than you are spending. We have got spending in this budget over two years growing twice as fast as the economy...

It is what every economist is saying right now, there needs to be restraint.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has gone straight from the House of Representatives to the ABC studios to give a post-budget interview to Sarah Ferguson on 7.30.

Ferguson opens by asking Chalmers if he will take responsibility for any future interest rate rise and “accept that this budget didn’t convince [the Reserve Bank]” to keep rates steady.

The Reserve Bank will take its decisions independently. I take responsibility for my part of the inflation fight and the budget is making a big effort in that regard...

I don’t think that’s the only measure of a decent budget. We are trying to put downward pressure on inflation.”

Reducing inflation was touted as a key goal of the budget.

There’s a lot to make sense of on budget night, but luckily, our experts had a head start from inside lock up to process the documents and form their analyses.

We’ve collated their views into one story – click here to read it.

Journalists from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age go over the budget documents in lock up.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen