The Budget Reply Australia Needs

 

Last night’s budget confirmed what many Australians already suspected: this government thinks voters are mugs.

For years Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers repeated the same assurances over and over again. No changes to capital gains tax. No changes to negative gearing. No changes to trusts. Yet now, under pressure from spiralling deficits and collapsing productivity, Labor has walked away from those promises.

Not because the country demanded it. Not because it will solve the housing crisis. But because governments addicted to spending eventually run out of other people’s money.

And that is exactly what this budget represents: a lazy, dishonest budget that refuses to confront Australia’s real problems.

The government claims it is improving housing affordability, while simultaneously driving population growth at levels that overwhelm supply. It claims inflation is under control, while Australians are still paying far more for groceries, electricity, insurance and rent than they were just a few years ago. It claims the books are improving, while relying on economic forecasts so heroic they belong in fantasy fiction.

We are expected to believe that NDIS growth magically collapses from around 10% annually to barely 1% within months. We are expected to believe inflation plunges rapidly back toward 2.5% while government spending remains at record highs. We are expected to believe productivity somehow recovers while taxes rise, regulations multiply and business confidence collapses.

Australians have heard this kind of story before.

Big promises. Bigger spending. And eventually, even bigger deficits.

The real tragedy is that this country does not lack potential. Australia has immense natural wealth, talented people and enormous opportunities. What we lack is leadership willing to tell the truth.

The truth is that prosperity cannot be built on government handouts and bureaucratic expansion. It cannot be built on punishing aspiration. It cannot be built on endless migration while young Australians cannot afford homes.

A serious alternative budget reply from Angus Taylor should say exactly that.

It should declare that the Coalition will reverse Labor’s attacks on capital gains tax, negative gearing and family trusts. Australians should not be punished for investing, saving or building wealth. Incentive matters. Aspiration matters.

It should announce a four-year immigration moratorium limiting net migration to 100,000 per year so housing supply has a chance to catch up and infrastructure pressure can ease.

It should recognise the obvious reality that much of the world is already retreating from economically destructive net zero policies. Australia cannot continue crippling its own energy system while competitors pursue cheap, reliable power.

It should impose a freeze on public service hiring, allowing natural attrition to gradually reduce Canberra’s bureaucratic bloat instead of constantly expanding it.

It should commit to limiting total government revenue to no more than 25% of GDP because governments do not create prosperity — productive citizens do.

And it should permanently index tax brackets to inflation so Australians stop being quietly punished through bracket creep every single year.

These are not radical ideas. They are common-sense principles that once underpinned Australian prosperity.

Reward work. Encourage investment. Limit government. Produce affordable energy. Control spending. Restore productivity.

Instead, Labor delivered another budget built on spin, rosy assumptions and political survival.

Australians deserved honesty.

What they got was a glossy brochure for national decline.