The Death Knell of the Albanese Government - The Federal Budget 2026

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Last night, Jim Chalmers handed down what I think will be remembered as the death knell of the Albanese Labor government.

[00:00:06]Not because it was bold, because it was a betrayal.

[00:00:09]And if you're a young Australian who's been told to work hard, save, invest and build something this budget just told you, you're the mug.

[00:00:21]The broken promise.

[00:00:24]Let's start with the elephant in the room.

[00:00:26]Negative gearing.

[00:00:26]Anthony Albanese stood in front of Australians repeatedly before the 2025 election, and ruled out touching negative gearing.

[00:00:34]Well, you can see the race sitting on the road gearing policy ahead of the election. No.

[00:00:39]So you completely ruling it out?

[00:00:41]I think that was a pretty clear answer.

[00:00:43]He said it wasn't labor policy.

[00:00:45]He said it wasn't on the agenda.

[00:00:47]He said it again after winning.

[00:00:49]He said it all throughout the whole campaign.

[00:00:51]And last night, one year into his second term.

[00:00:54]He broke that promise.

[00:00:55]Now, labor will tell you that they have a mandate.

[00:00:58]Let's talk about that mandate.

[00:00:59]Albanese won government in 2025 with around 32% of the primary vote, one of the lowest primary votes for a winning party in Australian history.

[00:01:09]Two thirds of Australians voted for someone else.

[00:01:12]That is not a mandate to fundamentally restructure how Australians build wealth.

[00:01:18]That is a plurality propped up by preferences.

[00:01:21]And here's the kicker.

[00:01:22]Bill shorten took almost the exact same policy to the 2019 election.

[00:01:26]He campaigned on it.

[00:01:27]He was upfront about it, and he lost what was supposed to be the unusable election.

[00:01:32]Australians overwhelmingly rejected it as a policy outcome.

[00:01:36]So what labor has done is take a policy that the public rejected at the ballot box, hide it during two campaigns and then ram it through after the fact.

[00:01:45]That is not democracy.

[00:01:47]That's a bait and a switch.

[00:01:50]The attack on aspiration.

[00:01:53]Let's talk about what this budget actually does to aspirational Australians.

[00:01:58]The message from Canberra last night was loud and clear.

[00:02:01]Don't save. Don't invest.

[00:02:03]Don't try to build wealth outside of what this government approves of.

[00:02:07]Because if you do, they're coming for you.

[00:02:09]This is the country that used to celebrate the small business owner, the tradie who bought an investment property to fund his retirement.

[00:02:16]The migrant family that scrimped for a deposit on a second home so their kids wouldn't have to.

[00:02:22]The nurse and the cop who pooled their incomes to get ahead.

[00:02:25]These are not the top end of town.

[00:02:28]ATO data shows that the majority of Australians who negatively gear earn under $100,000 a year.

[00:02:34]These are teachers, nurses, police officers, tradies.

[00:02:39]These are the people labor is now punishing for trying to provide for their own retirement.

[00:02:44]Instead of leaning on the pension, we have spent decades telling Australians take responsibility to plan ahead.

[00:02:51]Don't be a burden on the state.

[00:02:54]And now we're punishing the exact people who listened.

[00:02:57]The intergenerational equity lie.

[00:03:01]Labor is selling this as intergenerational equity, helping young Australians.

[00:03:06]It's simply not. It's pulling the ladder up.

[00:03:09]Real tax reform would have broadened the base, lower marginal tax rates and reward productivity. This isn't that.

[00:03:17]This is rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship and telling young Australians they should be grateful for a worse deal than their parents got.

[00:03:25]And here's the cruelest part.

[00:03:26]Under the new structure, negatively geared investors are being pushed towards new builds.

[00:03:33]Sounds great right?

[00:03:34]More supply.

[00:03:35]Problem solved.

[00:03:36]Except the first home buyer incentives are also targeted at new builds.

[00:03:40]So what has labor actually done?

[00:03:42]They've taken first home buyers and property investors.

[00:03:46]Two groups already competing for limited stock and shoved them down the same narrow corridor of the market to fight it out.

[00:03:55]The same asset class, the same auctions, the same bidding wars.

[00:03:59]That's not helping young Australians.

[00:04:01]That's setting them up to lose against people with deeper pockets.

[00:04:06]The real problem they won't touch.

[00:04:10]And while all this is going on, the actual structural problem in this country is being made worse by the day.

[00:04:16]Net overseas migration hit a record 528,000 in 20 2223.

[00:04:22]The Treasury has been forecasting it would moderate.

[00:04:25]And now we learned forecasts have just been revised upwards.

[00:04:30]Again, you cannot bring in this many people during a housing crisis and pretend you're serious about affordability.

[00:04:37]The maths doesn't work.

[00:04:38]Every demographer, every economist, every honest commentator knows it.

[00:04:43]We are not building enough homes.

[00:04:45]We haven't been for a decade.

[00:04:47]And the response from this government is to keep the tap running on demand.

[00:04:51]While attacking the supply side investors who actually build housing.

[00:04:56]This is the economic Ponzi scheme.

[00:04:58]Nobody in Canberra wants to name.

[00:05:00]GDP looks fine on paper because we keep adding people in.

[00:05:04]GDP per capita, the number that actually tells you whether individual Australians are getting wealthier has just been going backwards at a rate of knots.

[00:05:15]We have been in a per capita recession for all of this government's term.

[00:05:21]That is the real story.

[00:05:22]That's what an honest budget would have addressed.

[00:05:26]The brain drain.

[00:05:30]And finally, why would you start a business in this country anymore?

[00:05:33]Australia's top marginal tax rate is 47%, including Medicare.

[00:05:37]That's among the highest in the developed world.

[00:05:39]Singapore has no capital gains tax.

[00:05:42]Hong Kong has no capital gains tax.

[00:05:45]The UAE has no capital gains tax.

[00:05:48]Even the United States, for all its problems, taxes, long term capital gains at 20% federally.

[00:05:55]Our best founders are already leaving.

[00:05:58]Atlassian moved to the US.

[00:06:00]Canvas founders are everywhere, but here.

[00:06:03]And this budget gives every ambitious young Australian one more reason to pack their bags.

[00:06:09]Less innovation, fewer higher paying jobs.

[00:06:13]A smaller tax base.

[00:06:15]And then labor wonders why we have to keep raising taxes on whoever's left here in Australia.

[00:06:20]This budget is not a reform.

[00:06:22]It's a confession.

[00:06:24]A confession that this government has run out of ideas, has no plan for productivity.

[00:06:29]No plan for housing supply.

[00:06:30]No plan for the structural problems eating this country alive.

[00:06:34]And so it's reached for the oldest trick in the playbook.

[00:06:37]Tax the people who are getting ahead.

[00:06:39]Hand it to the people who vote for you and call it fairness.

[00:06:42]Australians can see it.

[00:06:43]And the next election is going to be a reckoning.

[00:06:46]And it should be.

[00:06:47]If you got value from this hit subscribe.

[00:06:49]Tell me in the comment section.

[00:06:50]Did the budget hit you or did it hit someone you know?

[00:06:54]Let's keep the conversation going.

[00:06:56]I'm Mel Pikos and we've been talking tactics.