'Pulling up the ladder': Young Australians on negative gearing and tax changes | ABC NEWS

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]It's been a pretty big reaction, I guess, and that's no surprise because this budget was aimed at young Australians, according to the Labor government. They're saying, "We were trying to make the system fairer for Gen Z and millennials." I think it's fair to say, like any other group, Gen Z and millennials don't all agree on everything. There's a broad spectrum of opinion on a lot of these issues, but the main thing is they're liking seeing some attention on younger people, younger Australians, but a lot of people are telling us there's still not enough support for them day-to-day. Like, we've got people who are really struggling to live. To put it into perspective, we were speaking with a young person a couple of weeks ago who is in a full-time job, but he's turning up to food banks because they just can't afford groceries. We've got other people who we've spoken to recently who are saying, "We're camping at work because we can't afford the fuel to get to and from work." So, these are young Australians who are in really, really tricky financial strife. I think there's a lot of support for stuff like the tax offset, the $250 tax offset, the $1,000 instant deduction, but again, we're hearing from people that that is years down the track. We're talking 2027 or 2028, and there are potentially a couple of rent increases that could come up before then. So, a lot of these young Australians are saying, "What are we going to do?"

[00:01:24]Is your audience telling you they believe the government's plan will address intergenerational wealth inequity? Yeah, well, I mean, they're hoping it will, but there are some questions that are being asked about this grandfathering of provisions around capital gains and negative gearing. The government effectively saying, "Look, we don't think the system has been fair, and we're making changes. However, if you have invested previously and you already own some investment properties, you'll be okay, and you can effectively continue to negative gear for the foreseeable future." A lot of young Australians are telling us, well, is that actually address addressing this inequity issue because we feel like there's nothing for us to aspire to. If we want to own investment properties, we're not going to have the same benefits that our parents or our grandparents really had in previous years. And so, we really are worried that it's older generations pulling up the ladder behind them is something that we keep hearing. We're also hearing from young Australians who are saying rent increases are something that they're worried about. They're worried that, you know, these changes could lead to an increase in in rents across the country.

[00:02:34]And we've heard from the government saying, "Look, there may be an increase, but it will be minimal." But a lot of Australians are telling us, "Look, we can't afford anything. Like, we're really at capacity right now, and any more is just not going to be doable."

[00:02:48]So, the audience has been sending in questions that they want answers to on budget 26. Um the first one is from Flynn in Perth. He's asking, "Why hasn't the government introduced a gas tax?"

[00:02:59]Yeah, I think this is the number one question for young Australians. If you go to any politician's social media and check it out, if you look at the comment section, anyone under the age of 40 is asking this question. It's a question that and to an issue that seems to cross all political boundaries. It doesn't matter if these young people are voting for One Nation, if they're voting for the Greens, Labor, people want this gas tax. And it's a 25% gas tax that has been proposed for by people like Senator David Pocock who thinks this could be a really good idea and could secure Australians billions of dollars in funding every single year. The government had signaled before this budget it it wasn't going to happen, that they weren't going to be introducing a new gas tax. But that hasn't stopped a lot of the frustration from younger voters who are now saying, "Why not? If we're talking about all of these things we can't afford in the future and deficits as far as the eye can see, shouldn't we be looking at some of these bigger goals? Shouldn't we be more ambitious when it comes to taxes and when it comes to securing the future for young Australians? We also heard from Sarah, who's in Brisbane. She wants to know, when is the government going to fix the cost of university degrees? Are there any changes to student fees in the budget? No, there's not. And I think this is a really interesting one because the government has admitted that this job-ready graduates program that was introduced by the former Morrison government in 2021 and effectively doubled the cost of arts degrees and degrees in in law and social sciences, the government's basically admitted it's a failure. It said it doesn't work, but still 4 years on, there are no moves to get rid of it. And we've got Universities Australia saying, "Look, we're heading towards $100,000 degrees in this country." And our listeners telling us there's no point addressing all of these other issues in regards to tax and negative gearing and capital gains if we're starting life burdened with so much debt. If we're starting our first job and we have $60,000 of debt, how are we going to live?