Droppiehttps://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/2026/05/22/real-world-budget-selling
Anthony Albanese’s burst of courage, changing his election campaign position of doing nothing on significant tax reform, has triggered more than the expected sound and fury. It is also proving a net positive for his government.
The prime minister has taken a personal hit in the published polls, with the Resolve poll in The Age putting Liberal leader Angus Taylor ahead of Albanese as preferred prime minister, 33-30, with 37 per cent of people undecided – a result not replicated elsewhere.
Labor, however, remains in an election-winning position in all the polls, despite it being the worst received budget since Paul Keating’s treasurer, John Dawkins, broke the “L-A-W” tax cuts promise in 1993.
Still, it was a minority of voters in Newspoll (47 per cent) who described the budget as bad, with 31 per cent saying it was neither good nor bad and 22 per cent finding it was good.
Privately, the prime minister has been rocked by the vehemence of the campaign against the budget, not so much from the “three right-wing parties” but from what he calls “their allies”. By that he means the legacy media, particularly News Corp and its flagship, The Australian.
Despite daily negative stories, canvassing every worst-case scenario, Newspoll found Labor’s primary vote static at 31 per cent, with the Coalition dropping a point to 20 per cent and One Nation jumping 3 points to 27 per cent.
Rival pollster Kos Samaras says this poll shows the budget response was “a lot of noise for what?” He says the polling over the past six months shows “all the moving is on the right and it’s profound”.
It makes Nationals leader Matt Canavan’s call for a snap election over the proposed reforms crazy brave.
Samaras expects his own RedBridge polling to mirror Newspoll, as the other published surveys did this week.
Polling analyst Kevin Bonham’s aggregate of all the polls is 52.4 per cent to 47.6 per cent Labor’s way against the Coalition. His One Nation shadow-2PP has it 52.9 per cent Labor’s way, against 47.1 for Pauline Hanson’s party.
Those numbers come after Angus Taylor threw caution to the wind and attempted to outflank One Nation on anti-immigration sentiment and policy. He promised to end bracket creep, creating a permanent rolling income tax cut. He would also repeal Labor’s changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, as well as its targeting of tax minimisation in trusts.
But Newspoll found the prevailing view among voters was that the Coalition would not have delivered a better budget. Of respondents, 47 per cent believed that, against 39 per cent who disagreed and 14 per cent who were undecided.
The Resolve poll found broad support for the budget’s big-ticket items on tax reform. More people supported these changes than opposed them, with a significant number either undecided or neutral in their response.
This is in line with Labor’s own focus group research in the immediate budget aftermath. The government has lost skin but not as much as its opponents had hoped. Resolve found 45 per cent thought no less of Labor, against 36 per cent who had changed their view in the negative. A cohort of 15 per cent said the budget had improved their view of the government.
A key Labor strategist says the overall mood of the electorate is grim, with the war in the Middle East turbocharging inflation and fears rising over the security of transport fuels and vital fertiliser needed for primary production. In light of all of this, the strategist said he was not surprised that changes to the way Australians are taxed has made them apprehensive – even if the changes are fairer overall. According to Newspoll, a majority (52 per cent) thought the budget would leave them worse off.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says his handiwork has involved “a whole bunch of difficult political decisions”, and he is prepared “to wear some political heat for that”. He says he’s very proud of the reforms that are in the budget “because they will make a meaningful difference to the lives of a number of Australians, even if they cause us a bit of political difficulty in the near term”.
Albanese is very keen to have the major tax changes pass the parliament before the winter break in July. His critics say he is doing this to ram them through before there is an even louder crescendo of dissent.
The prime minister says the absence of the legislation is allowing campaigns to be run that “aren’t based on the facts”. He says that when people see the legislation they will be able to assess it for themselves.
Maybe, but it won’t stop the desperate misrepresentations. The Coalition, once again under the influence of Tony Abbott, that archetypal political pugilist, is determined to “fight ... fight ... fight” the changes all the way. They are calling for an extended Senate inquiry, taking evidence all around Australia. It sounds like the sort of roadshow shadow treasurer Tim Wilson successfully ran against Labor’s proposed franking credit reforms ahead of the 2019 election.
Now in opposition, the Liberals would need the Greens to support a similar roadshow if it were to go ahead. Senator Nick McKim has already chaired a Senate select committee inquiring into the capital gains tax discount, but says the balance of power party is “considering our approach”.
As the week progressed, Albanese showed no inclination to buckle under the relentless pressure his opponents and their “allies” were mounting. There is confidence in the higher echelons of the government that the message is resonating and people understand the reforms are directed at intergenerational fairness in home ownership.
A key minister says, “Everyone knows we are fighting for young people to have a chance to own a home.” He believes the fight just means “people value the commitment”.
Analysis by independent economist Saul Eslake suggests Treasury may have been too pessimistic in saying the tax changes would reduce housing supply by 35,000 homes. That’s a figure seized on by the opposition to reject the reform.
Writing in Guardian Australia, Eslake said “it’s possible that the combination of retaining tax breaks for investors in new builds while removing them for prospective investors in established dwellings will prompt a shift in investor demands towards new builds”.
Eslake says the net effect of the tax changes would be to boost the supply of housing rather than reduce it, contrary to what Treasury modelling suggests.
The glaring weakness in the Coalition and One Nation’s rejection of Labor’s reforms is that they have come up with nothing credible of their own to address the housing crisis.
Pauline Hanson says what the government is proposing is “communism” – the wealth transfer she would prefer to perpetuate is from wage-earners to investors. Don’t tell her low-income supporters in regional Australia, but she is not as much on their side as they would like to believe.
Angus Taylor shocked some in the party room when he used his budget reply speech to join Hanson in demonising “mass migration” and promising to discriminate against permanent residents and migrants in favour of “Australian citizens”. There is a belief in the parliamentary Liberal Party that the tough stand taken with little notice by Taylor was heavily influenced by Abbott and his former chief of staff, Peta Credlin. According to one fellow Liberal, Taylor has been “intellectually captured” by the pair.
Moderates are shaking their heads that Taylor shares Abbott’s belief that Peter Dutton failed because he was too weak on culture war issues and immigration policy.
1/2
#AusPol #WhyTheFuckIsLabor #HahahahaLiebs #NatsAreNuts #GreensYEAH #VoteGreens #VoteProgIndies #PHONkedinthehead
Anthony Albanese’s burst of courage, changing his election campaign position of doing nothing on significant tax reform, has triggered more than the expected sound and fury. It is also proving a net positive for his government.
The prime minister has taken a personal hit in the published polls, with the Resolve poll in The Age putting Liberal leader Angus Taylor ahead of Albanese as preferred prime minister, 33-30, with 37 per cent of people undecided – a result not replicated elsewhere.
Labor, however, remains in an election-winning position in all the polls, despite it being the worst received budget since Paul Keating’s treasurer, John Dawkins, broke the “L-A-W” tax cuts promise in 1993.
Still, it was a minority of voters in Newspoll (47 per cent) who described the budget as bad, with 31 per cent saying it was neither good nor bad and 22 per cent finding it was good.
Privately, the prime minister has been rocked by the vehemence of the campaign against the budget, not so much from the “three right-wing parties” but from what he calls “their allies”. By that he means the legacy media, particularly News Corp and its flagship, The Australian.
Despite daily negative stories, canvassing every worst-case scenario, Newspoll found Labor’s primary vote static at 31 per cent, with the Coalition dropping a point to 20 per cent and One Nation jumping 3 points to 27 per cent.
Rival pollster Kos Samaras says this poll shows the budget response was “a lot of noise for what?” He says the polling over the past six months shows “all the moving is on the right and it’s profound”.
It makes Nationals leader Matt Canavan’s call for a snap election over the proposed reforms crazy brave.
Samaras expects his own RedBridge polling to mirror Newspoll, as the other published surveys did this week.
Polling analyst Kevin Bonham’s aggregate of all the polls is 52.4 per cent to 47.6 per cent Labor’s way against the Coalition. His One Nation shadow-2PP has it 52.9 per cent Labor’s way, against 47.1 for Pauline Hanson’s party.
Those numbers come after Angus Taylor threw caution to the wind and attempted to outflank One Nation on anti-immigration sentiment and policy. He promised to end bracket creep, creating a permanent rolling income tax cut. He would also repeal Labor’s changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, as well as its targeting of tax minimisation in trusts.
But Newspoll found the prevailing view among voters was that the Coalition would not have delivered a better budget. Of respondents, 47 per cent believed that, against 39 per cent who disagreed and 14 per cent who were undecided.
The Resolve poll found broad support for the budget’s big-ticket items on tax reform. More people supported these changes than opposed them, with a significant number either undecided or neutral in their response.
This is in line with Labor’s own focus group research in the immediate budget aftermath. The government has lost skin but not as much as its opponents had hoped. Resolve found 45 per cent thought no less of Labor, against 36 per cent who had changed their view in the negative. A cohort of 15 per cent said the budget had improved their view of the government.
A key Labor strategist says the overall mood of the electorate is grim, with the war in the Middle East turbocharging inflation and fears rising over the security of transport fuels and vital fertiliser needed for primary production. In light of all of this, the strategist said he was not surprised that changes to the way Australians are taxed has made them apprehensive – even if the changes are fairer overall. According to Newspoll, a majority (52 per cent) thought the budget would leave them worse off.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says his handiwork has involved “a whole bunch of difficult political decisions”, and he is prepared “to wear some political heat for that”. He says he’s very proud of the reforms that are in the budget “because they will make a meaningful difference to the lives of a number of Australians, even if they cause us a bit of political difficulty in the near term”.
Albanese is very keen to have the major tax changes pass the parliament before the winter break in July. His critics say he is doing this to ram them through before there is an even louder crescendo of dissent.
The prime minister says the absence of the legislation is allowing campaigns to be run that “aren’t based on the facts”. He says that when people see the legislation they will be able to assess it for themselves.
Maybe, but it won’t stop the desperate misrepresentations. The Coalition, once again under the influence of Tony Abbott, that archetypal political pugilist, is determined to “fight ... fight ... fight” the changes all the way. They are calling for an extended Senate inquiry, taking evidence all around Australia. It sounds like the sort of roadshow shadow treasurer Tim Wilson successfully ran against Labor’s proposed franking credit reforms ahead of the 2019 election.
Now in opposition, the Liberals would need the Greens to support a similar roadshow if it were to go ahead. Senator Nick McKim has already chaired a Senate select committee inquiring into the capital gains tax discount, but says the balance of power party is “considering our approach”.
As the week progressed, Albanese showed no inclination to buckle under the relentless pressure his opponents and their “allies” were mounting. There is confidence in the higher echelons of the government that the message is resonating and people understand the reforms are directed at intergenerational fairness in home ownership.
A key minister says, “Everyone knows we are fighting for young people to have a chance to own a home.” He believes the fight just means “people value the commitment”.
Analysis by independent economist Saul Eslake suggests Treasury may have been too pessimistic in saying the tax changes would reduce housing supply by 35,000 homes. That’s a figure seized on by the opposition to reject the reform.
Writing in Guardian Australia, Eslake said “it’s possible that the combination of retaining tax breaks for investors in new builds while removing them for prospective investors in established dwellings will prompt a shift in investor demands towards new builds”.
Eslake says the net effect of the tax changes would be to boost the supply of housing rather than reduce it, contrary to what Treasury modelling suggests.
The glaring weakness in the Coalition and One Nation’s rejection of Labor’s reforms is that they have come up with nothing credible of their own to address the housing crisis.
Pauline Hanson says what the government is proposing is “communism” – the wealth transfer she would prefer to perpetuate is from wage-earners to investors. Don’t tell her low-income supporters in regional Australia, but she is not as much on their side as they would like to believe.
Angus Taylor shocked some in the party room when he used his budget reply speech to join Hanson in demonising “mass migration” and promising to discriminate against permanent residents and migrants in favour of “Australian citizens”. There is a belief in the parliamentary Liberal Party that the tough stand taken with little notice by Taylor was heavily influenced by Abbott and his former chief of staff, Peta Credlin. According to one fellow Liberal, Taylor has been “intellectually captured” by the pair.
Moderates are shaking their heads that Taylor shares Abbott’s belief that Peter Dutton failed because he was too weak on culture war issues and immigration policy.
1/2
#AusPol #WhyTheFuckIsLabor #HahahahaLiebs #NatsAreNuts #GreensYEAH #VoteGreens #VoteProgIndies #PHONkedinthehead
