Author: Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Opposition leader Peter Dutton will promise in his Thursday budget reply that a Coalition government would immediately halve the fuel excise on petrol and diesel. The cut, which would take the excise from 50.8 cents a litre to 25.4 cents, would be for a year, at a cost of A$6 billion. The opposition says the measure would mean a household with one vehicle filling up once a week would save about $14 weekly, on average. This would amount to about $700 to $750 over the year, based on a 55 litre tank. A two-car household would save about $28 a…

Tax cuts are the centrepiece of the Albanese government’s cost-of-living budget bid for re-election in May. The surprise tax measures mean taxpayers will receive an extra tax cut of up to A$268 from July 1 next year and up to $536 every year from July 1 2027. Delivering his fourth budget on Tuesday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers described the tax relief as “modest”. It will cost the budget $3 billion in 2026-27, $6.7 billion in 2027-28 and just over $17 billion over the forward estimates. From July 1 2026 the 16% tax rate – which applies to taxable income between…

Cyclone Alfred will cost the March 25 budget at least A$1.2 billion, hit growth and put pressure on inflation, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says. In a Tuesday speech previewing the budget, Chalmers will also say that on preliminary estimates, the cyclone’s immediate hit to GDP is expected to be up to $1.2 billion, which could wipe a quarter of a percentage point off quarterly growth. “It could also lead to upward pressure on inflation. From building costs to damaged crops raising prices for staples like fruit and vegetables,” Chalmers says in the speech, an extract of which has been released ahead of…

The “maybe” March 25 budget is now a definite, the government’s hand forced by Cyclone Alfred. Anthony Albanese held open his option of calling an April 12 poll this weekend until the battering winds and waves and certain flooding made totally clear on Friday what had been obvious to many people from the start. Announcing an election on the back of a cyclone would be madness. But the prime minister couldn’t quite bring himself to admit the April poll had been in his sights, although that was widely acknowledged within the government. He told the ABC late Friday, “I have…

The Albanese government on Sunday will pledge $8.5 billion for Medicare, declaring this would enable all Australians to have access to bulk billing by 2030. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will announce the policy at a rally in Tasmania, where the Labor seat of Lyons and the Liberal seat of Bass are in play. Under the plan, Labor would extend the bulk billing incentive to all Australians, and also create an extra incentive payment for practices that bulk billed all their patients. The changes would mean an extra 18 million bulk billed GP visits annually, the government says. Nine out of…

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will not be organising a bucks’ night ahead of the coming nuptials of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon. How do we know this morsel of trivia? The treasurer, appearing on Wednesday breakfast TV to talk up Tuesday’s interest rate cut, was asked about being in charge of arranging the PM’s bucks’ party. “I’m more of a cup of tea and an early night kind of guy these days. And so I’m sure you can find someone more appropriate to plan the bucks,” Chalmers said, laughing off whatever impatience he may have felt at being taken…

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dumped – for the second time – the government’s controversial “Nature Positive” legislation, which had run into strong opposition from the Western Australian Labor government. Albanese, speaking on The Conversation’s Politics podcast ahead of a fortnight parliamentary sitting starting next week, said there was not enough support for the legislation, which had been on the draft list of bills for next week, circulated by the government. This is the second time the Prime Minister has pulled back from the legislation. Late last year he also said it did not have enough support, despite Environment Minister…

Peter Dutton has chosen a dark horse in naming David Coleman for the key shadow foreign affairs portfolio, in a reshuffle that also seeks to boost the opposition’s credentials with women. Coleman has been communications spokesman. He led the opposition’s campaign for an age limit on young people’s access to social media – a policy that was later adopted by the government and now has been legislated by the parliament. He is one of the opposition’s small band of moderates although not seen as a factional player. Coleman, who holds the Sydney marginal seat of Banks, has done extensive work…

Neale Daniher, a campaigner in the fight against motor neurone disease and a former champion Essendon footballer, is the 2025 Australian of the Year, Himself a sufferer from the deadly disease Daniher, 63, who lives in Victoria, co-founded the charity FightMND, that has raised and invested more than $100 million into research to seek a cure. Daniher was diagnosed in 2013. “Neale has lived his condition very publicly, even in the advanced stages of the disease,” a statement announcing the award said. He has also defied the usual odds in surviving with the disease for more than a decade when…

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s Sunday “soft launch” of his campaign for election year was carefully calibrated to pitch to the party faithful while seeking to project enough nuance to avoid alienating centrist voters. It contained nothing new – there was no attention-catching big announcement to start the year. Rather, this was Dutton (re)introducing himself (“I was born into an outer suburbs working-class family”) with a back story focusing on aspiration; canvassing Coalition priorities and policy offerings to date, and delivering the usual critique of Labor’s alleged incompetence and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “weak” leadership. “Weak leaders create hard times –…