Australian budget

State budgets are the biggest losers from what is shaping up to be the nation’s greatest housing correction in modern history.

I explained on Monday why Australia’s inflation problem is primarily domestically driven, in response to Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ claims that the war in the Middle East, not excessive government spending, was driving inflation.

Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) must win the award for Australia’s worst-ever transport infrastructure project.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has dashed hopes of any new cost-of-living relief, warning that his Government is about to be hit with billions of dollars in extra costs to service its debt.

The 2026 Intergenerational Report, released last month, forecasts that the federal budget will remain in deficit for the next 40 years, with tax receipts falling short of expenditure.

Australia is heading into a steep debt‑refinancing cliff that will impact both federal and state governments. Federal gross debt surpassed $1 trillion (33% of GDP) in August and is projected to reach $1.25 trillion by 2030 due to persistent deficits.

If you want proof that Australia has become a taxing and spending economy, look no further than the latest taxation data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), compiled by The Australian Newspaper.

Data from the Australian ­Office of Financial Management (AOFM) shows that the nation’s total debt ­totalled $983.7 billion as of last Friday.

When former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull first announced Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped hydro project in 2017, it was billed as a $2 billion project capable of producing 2 megawatts of power on demand and 350,000 megawatt-hours of storage by 2021.

In the debate over the appropriate size of the migration intake, proponents often reference estimates from the federal Treasury or the Parliamentary Budget Office to justify a larger intake.

It’s time. Louise Crawford – convener of the highly influential Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) – moved an amendment to ensure the Albanese government’s tax policies remove disincentives for orderly decarbonisation.

The Parliamentary Budget Office recently forecast that the gross debt of the states and territories will exceed $650 billion in 2026-27, up from just $266 billion in 2018-19.

Some guy named Angus Taylor has made a very poor case that One Nation will ruin the budget.

On Tuesday, both the NSW and Queensland state governments delivered their budgets.

There is growing concern that Australia’s tax and transfer system disproportionately benefits older, wealthier retirees while placing a rising burden on younger workers.

The AFR’s John Kehoe argues that “the government has inadvertently underwritten a tobacco crime wave and is now trying to plug the revenue hole by increasing taxes on capital income”.

The federal government has introduced a suite of structural, legislative and administrative reforms to slow the rapid growth in National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) costs.

The budget papers show that the Treasury’s base case is that the inflation rate will ease to 2.5% in 2027, after peaking at a forecast 5% in mid-2026.

Tuesday’s federal budget was another missed opportunity to fix the most egregious aspect of the nation’s tax system: the heavy reliance on taxing workers via personal income taxes.

Below is a dot-point summary of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget speech, which outlines the main budget measures.