2024-2025 Budget

A Golden Fleece or Pandora’s Box? (Surely the former…)

D. H. Kang

YES, I KNOW, IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. BUDGET TIME! Mr Chalmers, our Treasurer, is set to formally deliver the budget for the 2024-2025 year at 7pm. this Tuesday, or by the time you read this, probably Tuesday last. Although not everything is revealed yet (obviously), let’s go through what we do know from the preview:

The elephant in the room shall be cost-of-living support. The name itself is pretty self-explanatory: cost-of-living refers to the amount of money required so basic needs such as housing, food and healthcare are met, and the support bit refers to the changes to stage 3 tax cuts, which was actually announced at the start of this year. Compared to the previous coalition, there are greater tax cuts for the low-income, but also naturally benefit middle-income workers and their families, leaving average families with roughly 1900 dollars more – enough to buy a pretty decent computer or more than ten weeks of groceries. 

We can also somewhat expect energy bill relief as part of an extension of the Energy Bill Relief fund introduced in December 2022. PM Albanese announced a plan to build more solar panels previously as part of a $1.5 billion fund to ease pressure on families and fight inflation due to the power prices shooting upwards as a consequence of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The government plans to inject $12.3 billion into various housing programs to ease the rental crisis, in which renting affordability has hit a 17 year low. Over a five-year period, $1 billion is to be allocated to emergency accommodation for women and children, $1 billion to build new roads and infrastructure in support of housing, and $9.3 billion to social housing. 

Amongst other things, there is also set to be a wiping of three billion dollars in higher education debt interest for three million Australians by changing the way higher education debt interest is indexed, and for social workers, teachers and nurses, there is set to be a weekly payment of $319.50 during their professional placements.

All these benefits to cost of living are great, but it’s good to keep in mind that there are certain risks to economic pressures and inflation, that may force the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates. 

Aside from cost of living, the Prime Minister last month announced that the federal government would assist industries in boosting manufacturing and lift investment. From what we know, there is one billion dollars set to go into quantum computing, and one point five billion dollars to accelerate Australia’s medical manufacturing. Labour also plans on honing in on renewables, including one billion in the “solar sunshoot” program. In terms of defence capabilities, Defence Minister Richard Marles illustrated a new national defence strategy, involving an additional $5.7 billion into the military over the next four years and a whopping $50 billion dollars in the next decade. Stay tuned.