The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will hand down his fourth budget on Tuesday, which doubles as a launchpad for the Albanese government’s re-election campaign.
Ahead of the big reveal at 7.30pm on Tuesday, here’s a rundown of what we know so far.
Back in red
Chalmers has overseen back-to-back surpluses as booming commodity prices and a strong labour market filled up federal coffers.
Those days are over, with the budget to confirm a return to deficit this year and for the foreseeable future.
December’s mid-year budget update forecast a $26.9bn deficit in 2024-25, before growing to $46.9bn in 2025-26.
Labor is trumpeting progress in reducing gross debt, which is expected to be $940bn in 2024-25 – compared with $1.1tn forecast at the time of the 2022 election.
It has also found another $2.1bn in savings, $720m of which has come from cutting back on the use of consultants.
Power bill relief
Households and small businesses will get a further $150 off their energy bills from 1 July under a pre-budget announcement made over the weekend.
The $1.8bn measure – which the Coalition quickly matched – extends the bill relief until the end of 2025, with the $300 rebates announced in last year’s budget due to expire on 30 June.
Health
The biggest budget commitment (that we know of) came in February when Anthony Albanese unveiled an $8.5bn boost to Medicare, which includes a bulk-billing target of nine out of 10 GP visits by 2030.
Labor has committed to limit the price of medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to no more than $25 a script, at a cost to the budget of $689m, as well as $573m for women’s health.
The Coalition has matched each of the spending commitments.
Defence
The defence minister, Richard Marles, has confirmed $1bn in military spending would be brought forward, bringing the total allocated over the next four years to $10.6bn.
That amount is part of $50bn in planned defence spending over the decade.
Housing
Labor is pouring an extra $800m into its Help to Buy shared-equity housing scheme to assist more young Australians in entering the property market.
The states and territories will also be offered almost $50m in funding to grow their local prefabrication and modular housing industries.
Beer
The indexation of the draught beer excise will be paused for two years in a measure that will cost the budget about $95m over four years but have a negligible impact on the price of a pint.
Infrastructure and industry
With his first announcement of the 2025 election year, Albanese pledged $7.2bn for upgrades to the Bruce Highway in Queensland. The federal government will fund 80% of the works, with the state funding 20%.
The commonwealth is also partnering with the South Australian government on a $2.4bn package to save the troubled Whyalla steelworks. The prime minister also announced $125m for intersection upgrades in Melbourne.
