Labor’s budget resembled a seven-course degustation. It was welcome, but why don’t voters feel sated? | Nicki Hutley
None of the budget measures will change the outcome for most would-be home buyers in the short term, but Jim Chalmers’ reforms go well beyond one electoral cycle
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If last year’s federal budget was a fairy floss-like pre-election sugar hit, then this year’s is more like a seven-course degustation. But, while it offers a wide range of initiatives that are each individually tasty, in the end they don’t leave us feeling fully sated.
We were given a raft of tax, spending and regulatory initiatives to digest on the night. However, the treasurer referred in his speech to housing policies as “the core of our budget strategy”. The appalling decline in housing affordability over more than two decades across this country has come to be seen as an issue of intergenerational inequality. However, successive governments of both stripes have left the issue on the cutting-room floor because the interests of current homeowners and would-be home owners are not aligned. Improved affordability for the latter means reduced wealth for the former.
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