Anglicare says government’s tax reforms will help tackle inequality

Anglicare Australia has welcomed the federal government’s reforms to the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing in the budget, describing them as some of the most significant steps to tackle inequality in decades.

Anglicare Australia Executive Director Kasy Chambers:

For years, governments have avoided touching unfair tax concessions that deepen inequality and drive up housing costs. Tonight’s Budget changes that. Reforming the Capital Gains Tax discount is a significant and overdue step toward a fairer tax system.

These reforms recognise that Australia cannot keep subsidising wealth accumulation while millions of people struggle to afford the basics. This principle matters: governments should not be using the tax system to fuel speculative investment at the expense of everyone else.

Chambers said the reforms would help slow the growth in housing inequality over time, but warned they were not enough on their own to solve the housing crisis.

The biggest gap in tonight’s Budget is the lack of new investment in public and community housing. Australia’s housing crisis will not be solved without building many more homes people on low incomes can actually afford. We still need to see a major expansion of public and community housing if we want to tackle this crisis.

Plans for Trump Tower on the Gold Coast scrapped

The much-hyped vision of a Trump Tower on the Gold Coast has evaporated, less than three months after a deal was announced – and without a development application ever lodged.

The tower was promised to become Australia’s tallest and “best resort” when it was unveiled on social media in February, with the image of a twice bankrupt Australian property developer shaking hands with the US president’s son, Eric Trump, in Mar-a-Lago.

Billed at A$1.5bn, Altus Property Group’s David Young claimed the project would break ground by the end of the year and be realised by 2030.

At the time of the deal, Young was effusive about the Trump brand, declaring it synonymous with quality.

But in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday night, Young said the US war on Iran had made that brand “toxic to Australians”.

There is no acrimony between the Trump family and myself, why would there be after knowing them for 19 years when no one here then even knew who Donald Trump was.

It is pure business. My team and I look forward to completing the project and as an old expression goes, “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.

Victorian minister for Suburban Rail Loop defends Indigenous artwork on tunnel boring machines

The Victorian minister responsible for the Suburban Rail Loop, Nick Staikos, says critics of the commissioning of Indigenous artwork on the project’s tunnel boring machines were engaging in “petty politics”.

The Herald Sun reported on Wednesday that artist Hayden Roberts was commissioned to paint the cutter heads of two tunnel machines before their launch later this year, in a move the opposition’s transport spokesperson, Matthew Guy, labelled “stupid” during a cost-of-living crisis and “not value for money”.

But Staikos told reporters at parliament the artwork didn’t cost the project any additional money – though he would not provide a figure. He said:

I’m not going to engage in any petty politics on what is the largest transport project in our nation’s history – one that is going to change this great global city of Melbourne.

Asked if he’d been asked to approve it the artwork, he said: “I wasn’t asked to approve this piece of artwork, and it is a hypothetical to ask me if it was put in front of me if I’d approve it.”

Last night’s federal budget included another $3.8bn for the first stage of the project – known as SRL East – a 26km stretch of tunnels between Cheltenham and Box Hill. The project is billed as a 90km line between Cheltenham in the south-east and Werribee in the south-west, stopping at Melbourne airport.

‘As the facts change, you’re allowed to change your mind’: Shorten backs tax changes

Bill Shorten, who this morning said he felt vindicated over last night’s budget proposing significant changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and discretionary trusts, says that times change, and the housing crisis doesn’t wait three years for an election, in response to questions on why Anthony Albanese didn’t take this policy to the polls.

He says he regrets that the policy took 10 years to do, but that 40% of people in Sydney and Melbourne are now renters, which means that how the population feels about the issue has changed.

He tells Sky News it will give younger people a “fighting chance”.

I think the population’s changing. And as the facts change, you’re allowed to change your mind … things have got tougher.

It was a good idea 10 years ago and it’s an even better idea now.

Shorten says he currently uses negative gearing – having moved states from Melbourne to Canberra to take on the vice-chancellor position at the University of Canberra. He criticises the Coalition’s argument that the changes will now “kneecap” young people and aspirational Australians.

I think the Libs are sort of clutching at straws a little bit here, as they’re sort of looking for their identity when I get their logic. And good people can disagree with what happened last night. I respect that, but I think grandfathering is the sensible way. If you retrospectively change tax laws, that would be a bad law.

‘No wonder people don’t trust politicians’, Hume says

Jane Hume says it’s no surprise that people don’t trust pollies when the government can do a U-turn on their commitments and break election promises.

The opposition is going hard on this “broken promises” line against last night’s budget, accusing the government of a lack of honesty and integrity.

Speaking to Sky News, the deputy opposition leader accuses the government of “lies”.

No wonder people don’t trust politicians when they can look you in the eye and tell lies, whether it’s about $275 off your energy bill, whether it’s about fiscal responsibility, whether it’s about no changes to superannuation, no changes to taxation, this government lies.

Labor has built 660,000 homes in government, Albanese says

The government is past halfway on its target to build 1.2m homes, according to the PM – although it’s quickly running out of time with the deadline of 2029 fast approaching.

Anthony Albanese tells Nova Perth radio that Labor has built 660,000 homes since coming into office in 2022.

But it’s still far behind its target, agreed in late 2023, to build 1.2m homes by 2029.

Albanese is on the budget hard sell, and has been forced to justify breaking his promise to not touch negative gearing or capital gains tax, while also trying to increase supply. The PM has said (many many times this morning) that the government’s thinking has changed, and so have the times.

The number of homes that have been built since we’ve been elected is 660,000 now, the 5% deposit that we said at the last election was a big measure, more than 240,00 Australians have invested in that as a result …

So many stories you would have heard it, and you know people you’ve gone to options, they get outbid by investors. That takes away that and provides an opportunity for people, if it’s existing homes, whilst at the same time allowing investors to invest in that new supply as well. They’re helping not just themselves, but helping the nation as well, and helping boost that supply

CBA profits slip as it sets aside $200m for recession risk

The Commonwealth Bank has seen its profits slip slightly to $2.7bn for the first three months of 2026, down 1% from the previous six months’ average, on an unaudited cash basis.

Australia’s biggest bank said it had attracted more deposits and issued more loans but faced growing operating expenses as cloud computing, software licensing and AI investment grew.

Like other banks, CBA has begun preparing for the economy to slow as the Iran war hits, today lifting its provisioning for potential borrower collapses by $200m.

The share of CBA personal loan customers who are 90 days behind on repayments picked up markedly in the March quarter, to 1.71%, its highest since 2019, which the bank said was in part due to deliberate business settings.

Home loans and credit card arrears have also picked up but only slightly, to 0.69% and 0.68%, returning to where they were a year ago.

CBA’s chief executive officer, Matt Comyn, said:

The Australian economy continues to demonstrate resilience, but supply chain disruptions, higher prices and interest rates are expected to weigh on household spending and business activity.

NDIS not ‘the only lifeboat in the ocean’, Shorten

Bill Shorten, who was most recently the minister for the national disability insurance scheme, says that the NDIS was growing too quickly and did need to be made more sustainable.

When the government came into power in 2022 the growth rate was about 22% per year, which Shorten brought down to 9%, but he told RN Breakfast earlier “that was never going to be the destination.

.Shorten says that someone doesn’t have to be on the NDIS to receive support for their disability, as long as they are receiving the support that they need.

At the core of the NDIS, it’s changing lives for the better, but it wasn’t ever meant to be the only lifeboat in the ocean. And so, the government’s saying that they want to create more limited services outside the NDIS for people who don’t need the full NDIS orchestra of services.

Budget will ‘kneecap’ younger Australians

Tim Wilson has doubled down on his stance that the Coalition would look to repeal the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax “if necessary”. It’s a little different to what Angus Taylor is saying this morning.

Wilson tells Sky News:

We [will] take every measure to make sure that we stop and fight them and defeat them. But of course, if necessary, we’ll look at repeal as well.

The shadow treasurer says the budget is “built on bad faith, [and] built on broken trust”, after the government promised it would not touch those tax incentives.

He says the changes will lead to fewer homes being built and increase rents.

A reminder – the budget says that rent will increase about $2 a week for the average renter household.

We’ve said we’ll support measures around hospital funding. We said we’ll support income tax offsets on earned income. But when it comes down to the measures of broken trust built on bad faith that this government is putting forward, which is going to kneecap young Australians, then let’s be very clear about just how bad it is.

In pictures: the budget sell

Taylor and Wilson differ on negative gearing approach

Angus Taylor and Tim Wilson appear to have slightly different views on whether the opposition will repeal changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, announced in last night’s budget.

Last night, the shadow treasurer said that the opposition would “repeal if necessary” the changes.

But this morning Taylor wasn’t so clear cut, and would not commit to yanking back those reforms if elected.

Speaking to AM earlier, Taylor said “let’s see”.

Let’s see, because if you take their small business taxation, for instance, they’re saying they’re going to do a review because they realise there’s a whole lot of criticism they’ve had. They’re going to do a review of their own capital gains tax measures … So we don’t even know what final form this is going to come in. What I do know is we are dead opposed to those increases and we’ll fight them.

Housing tax changes will make ‘no meaningful difference’ to young Australians, opposition argues

Changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, which the opposition will fight, won’t shift the dial on young people getting into the property market, and will only increase home ownership by 0.1%, Angus Taylor says.

A little earlier, Taylor also spoke to the ABC’s AM program and continued to blame low housing supply and high migration for the housing crisis.

For a little fact check on whether slashing migration would help the housing crisis, read here. (Spoiler alert, it could well make the problem worse).

Taylor says that the tax changes will mean fewer homes are built and allow just a fraction of extra young people into the market.

The first is they admit that this is going to drive up rents. That’s in their own budget papers. There’s going to be less supply, higher rents. The numbers of owner-occupation are – if you believe them, 7,500 a year, that’s 0.1% increase, Mel. It will make no material difference to young Australians.

Just on that point about rents – the Treasury estimates the impact to be minimal: an extra $2 a week for a household paying the median rent.

Budget an ‘assault on aspiration’, Angus Taylor says

Angus Taylor says the opposition does not support *most* of the budget, and will fight until the election to stop the government from changing negative gearing, CGT and discretionary trust tax incentives.

The opposition leader is also out and about this morning in the Canberra cold, and spoke to the ABC’s News Breakfast.

He says the budget is an “assault on aspiration” and won’t build more houses.

We absolutely don’t support the assault on aspiration in this budget through hiking taxes on small businesses, on savings, on houses, on the government’s own admission.

We’re going to get less houses as a result of these taxes.

He does, however, say the opposition will support the $250 income tax offset for workers, but like his shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, did last night, argues that the offset will be eaten up within six months by inflation and calls it a “fraud”. And a reminder, that offset only comes into your wallet at tax time in 2028.

So what would the opposition do? Taylor says the opposition wants to clamp down on overseas migration to reduce demand and make it easier to build houses.

I’ve already said that central to this has to be getting immigration into balance with our housing supply. It’s out of balance.

Why would anyone believe you now? Albanese faces grilling over integrity

Anthony Albanese says it’s not the first time the government’s position has changed – just look at the U-turn on halving the fuel excise.

Speaking to Sky News, the prime minister says the thinking has changed, to address both supply and demand in the housing market.

You might also remember the PM doing a 180 after promising not to touch the Coalition’s stage-three tax cuts. He fronted up at the National Press Club in early 2024 to give the lowest-paid workers more money, and those in the higher tax bracket less.

Host Pete Stefanovic asks why the government didn’t take these changes to an election, rather than putting them in the budget. Albanese replies “our position has changed” (if I had a dollar for every time I heard that phrase this morning).

He’s now also facing questions on whether there will be death taxes or inheritance taxes now. No, Albanese says, but Stefanovic asks “why would anyone believe you now?”

Albanese replies:

We are putting in place changes for the future. We are quarantining, grandfathering, whatever way you want to call it, the existing arrangements, which are there for investors, because that’s the right thing to do. We are doing the right thing here.

The Coalition is ‘a rabble’, Albanese says

The prime minister says the opposition are a “rabble” but won’t say whether the chaotic state of the Coalition gave the government an opportunity to take on these broad tax reforms.

Anthony Albanese has moved over to ABC News and is asked whether the Coalition being a rabble has made it easier to put this budget together.

The Coalition is facing terrible polling and just lost the seat of Farrer, which it had held since its inception, to One Nation in last weekend’s byelection (and doesn’t that already feel like an eternity ago).

So the PM knows that the Coalition is badly bruised and might not have as much muscle as they would otherwise have to get the public angry about the changes. (The PM has probably also realised that a lot of households have been calling for the changes for some time.)

He says:

Well, they are a rabble, and they have – not surprisingly – just said no to everything, because they say no to everything and that’s what they’ve been doing for four years.

This was about doing the right thing by the country, so that, when you look back and you go, is this the right thing to do? People will say, ‘Yes’. We firmly believe that.

Albanese defends grandfathering tax incentives

The budget finally deals with both supply (boosting housing) and demand (reducing incentives for investors to give first home buyers less competition) and says that it will lead to an additional 75,000 people getting into the market over 10 years.

That’s just 7,500 additional people each year. Is that enough, the ABC AM program’s Melissa Clark asks the prime minister?

Anthony Albanese says it will make a “substantial difference”. He also tries to justify the decision to grandfather the policy, by allowing current investment owners to continue to use negative gearing incentives.

What it will do is to make a substantial difference by giving people that opportunity to aspire to their own home. It will also, of course, boost supply over time as well.

We do have to have a transition and that’s because we wanted to look after people who had made decisions based upon a system that had been there for a while, but a system that increasingly simply wasn’t working.

Australia to send military plane to strait of Hormuz reopening mission

Australia will join an international mission to reopen the strait of Hormuz, with plans to contribute a hi-tech surveillance plane to the effort.

The defence minister, Richard Marles, confirmed the news this morning in a statement, after an overnight meeting of defence ministers from 40 other countries. He said the meeting had resolved to back “collective diplomatic, economic and military capabilities to support freedom of navigation through the strait of Hormuz”.

“Australia stands ready to support an independent and strictly defensive Multinational Military Mission, led by the United Kingdom and France, once it is established,” Marles said.

Our intention is to contribute Australia’s world-leading E-7A Wedgetail aircraft to this defensive effort.

That plane, which was deployed to the United Arab Emirates about two months ago, is accompanied by about 85 Australian defence force staff. The plane has been in the region in a defensive capacity, to help protect Gulf nations from Iranian attacks after the US-Israel strikes on the nation began. The E7 has already had its deployment extended once and appears as though it will remain in the region for some time.

While this platform [the Wedgetail] is already doing work in the region, providing this capability would make a valuable contribution to the multinational mission and efforts to secure freedom of navigation in the strait of Hormuz.

We want to see this conflict end, the strait of Hormuz open and freedom of navigation resume. The longer this conflict goes on the more significant the impact on Australia will be. Our government is doing all we can to shield Australians from the impacts.

‘We’ve changed our position’, Albanese says

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers are being grilled over why they have changed their minds on tax incentives – ie why they broke an election promise not to touch negative gearing and CGT.

It’s a question they’ll continue to face for a while – and one the opposition will try to corner them on.

We knew coming into the budget that intergenerational inequality would be a big focus, and they’re saying now that they can’t watch another generation of Australians miss out on owning a home.

Albanese is facing a pretty combative line of questioning on the Today show. He’s asked whether he’ll next be introducing a “death tax”.

No, he says – but host Sarah Abo counters that he already promised the government wouldn’t change negative gearing or CGT. Albanese says:

We have put forward these changes, we’re being upfront about that. We are saying we’ve changed our position and why we have changed our position. And we have changed our position because we don’t want a generation of people who watch your program to be sitting there and thinking they’re going to be renting for the rest of their lives.

Chalmers says negative gearing will phase itself out over five to ten years

Heading over to the ABC’s News Breakfast program, Jim Chalmers says that while negative gearing tax perks won’t change for properties that people already hold, that doesn’t mean the perks will be used forever.

People that buy new properties after the changes have come into effect will still be able to use some negative gearing incentives.

The budget tells us that the government believes that this will keep house prices growing, but 2% less than they otherwise would.

Chalmers adds though that the government’s main focus on housing supply.

Typically it depends on which modelling you rely on but, between five and 10 years, typically a property will tip over from negatively geared to positively geared, and so that will phase out of the system.

The emphasis for most of the life of this government has been on building more homes and that’s still the primary focus.

Good morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you for the budget washup. Thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.

While I feel like I’ve had a quick turnaround from last night, the prime minister and treasurer are undoubtedly on less sleep, having already begun to do media interviews this morning.

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers are on the budget sell (which you can read all about here and here), doing a range of TV interviews from the prime minister’s courtyard at Parliament House and some radio interviews too.

There has been some political backlash to the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax but the government has also received a fair bit of applause from economists and others for the bold reforms, and we’ll be seeing plenty more reaction to it today.

It’s going to be a hectic and several coffee day so let’s get cracking.

Australian Medical Association gives mixed verdict to budget

The Australian Medical Association has praised the budget for locking in “much-needed” additional funding for public hospitals but said there was “little else” in the budget to address the critical issues facing Australia’s health system.

The AMA president, Dr Danielle McMullen, said the additional $25bn for the next national health reform agreement was very welcome but it left a funding gap, and other opportunities to tackle healthcare system problems had been missed.

She said:

Our modelling shows a remaining gap of at least $9.6bn – a gap that must be bridged if the cycle of crisis our public hospitals are in is to be broken.

We are also pleased to see $120.9m set aside to support the role of general practice in the early identification of children with development delay or neurodevelopmental difference through a Medicare funded three-year-old health assessment and expanded Comprehensive Health Assessment Program. It will be critical for all governments to ensure that appropriate support for eligible children is available on GP referral.

But McMullen said the budget provides little else to celebrate.

While we welcome a commitment to undertake consultation on private health reform, cuts to the private health insurance rebate for people who are 65 years and over are likely to see older Australians on modest incomes drop or downgrade their cover and this may put more pressure on the public hospital system.

Government deserves credit for spending political capital on reform says CEDA

Last night’s budget contained a warning that Australia could be thrown into recession if the Middle East crisis continues and the price of oil doesn’t fall back to pre-war levels.

Against this difficult background, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) says the budget makes good progres towards reform by delivering modest savings, and support for households and businesses partially offsetting higher revenue from commodity prices, inflation and a still strong labour market.

It also applauded measures to address housing supply, productivity growth, tax reform, cost of living and intergenerational fairness as “welcome steps towards a stronger, more resilient economy and social compact, but will require more targeted and stronger attention into the future”.

The CEDA’s chief executive, Melinda Cilento, said.

This was a genuinely difficult budget to calibrate and it contains many moving parts.

While higher commodity prices have boosted national income, the cost of living is biting, inflation remains too high and the global outlook remains highly uncertain. A government willing to spend political capital on productivity, housing, tax reform and intergenerational fairness deserves credit.

Climate Council says budget gives ‘free kick’ to fossil fuel companies

The Climate Council came out of the blocks quickly to decry a “massive free kick” in the budget for fossil fuel multinationals while consumers are “left exposed” to global energy price spikes and climate harm.

The council said last night that by maintaining more than $19bn in annual fossil fuel subsidies and foregone gas tax revenue, the budget ignored “major opportunities to expand clean energy solutions that shield Australians from global fossil fuel chaos”.

YouGov polling showed most Australians want the government to invest in expanding renewable energy solutions over fossil fuels to secure our energy future, the council claimed.

The Climate Council chief executive, Amanda McKenzie, said:

This budget maintains the $19bn gravy train for big fossil fuel corporations. That is $19bn in the wrong direction, keeping us tied to foreign oil rather than supporting the expansion of renewable energy solutions that Australians want to deliver a safer, cleaner, more secure energy future.