$300 energy rebate to every Australian household as $3.5bn centrepiece of pre-election cost-of-living budget. Follow live updatesFederal budget 2024: $300 energy rebates, cheaper medicines and rent relief in Jim Chalmers’ cost-of-living budgetGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastNick McKim said he agrees with EY chief economist, Cherelle Murphy, who says that you can look after people without impacting inflation by taking the money you are spending on people who don’t need it, and redirecting it to people who do. (Therefore it is the same pool of money, but targeted differently.)McKim:For example, you could end the massive tax breaks for property investors who own multiple investment properties then put in place a rent freeze and a rent cap, for example.You could tax billionaires and CEOs on the basis of their wealth and you could use that revenue to raise income support, which would lift a large number of Australians out of the grinding poverty that they experience every day.No, certainly not. I mean, what the surplus shows is that they’re prioritising their own political benefit over investing in the kind of programs that would provide genuine help to people who are really doing it tough at the moment.So what you’re going to see in the budget tonight is that having talked up an absolute storm on things like climate change and on things like cost of living, Labor is simply not prepared to take the action necessary to respond to those challenges that the urgency and the scale that is required. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2024/may/14/federal-budget-2024-live-updates-australia-treasurer-jim-chalmers-speech-latest-news
Author : Tory Shepherd (now), Amy Remeikis and Josh Taylor (earlier)
Publish date : 2024-05-14 09:46:09
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Federal budget 2024 live updates: Jim Chalmers delivers Australia budget speech – latest news
