‘Tax the pants off’: Joyce demands ‘honesty’ from Albanese ahead of budget reveal

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]I want to ask our experts, it's a short, sharp question. Not what do they expect to see in the budget, but what they want to see in the budget. Warren, I'll let you go first. Ross, I want to see the government uh recognize that their strategies and economic policies have failed the country and we've got evidence of that. Now, we have a government that is growing much faster than what the economy can. They're squeezing out the private sector. They have got to bring this explosive uh explosive growth in federal government, recurrent spending, permanent spending under control. And so I would like to see them start this the journey now because we need it now with this inflation. So it's a a plan to get government size of government down in in a responsible and staged way over the next decade.

[00:00:45]>> And what chance do you think you have of having that happen on Tuesday night?

[00:00:48]>> Zero.

[00:00:49]>> Okay. Cascaldi, what do you want to see in the budget? Well, we've got to protect people who are struggling the most, no question, with the shocks and the prediction of rising unemployment.

[00:00:58]So, we definitely want to see that targeted help for people who are on the lowest incomes, job seeker, youth allowance, um in poverty, can't afford to feed themselves, let alone keep a roof over their head. And secondly on the productivity side we have a challenge and we want to see uh investment in employment services and helping people who are working below their skill level to upskill so that we are enabling people to really get h their hands on the jobs that are out there and to be ready to move as the country also moves. Housing affordability no question it's a it's a obviously it's a human issue and it's also a productivity problem that very very shortly >> and progressive tax reform. There you go. All right. We'll see how that goes as well. Mike, what are you seeing out of the budget and what do you want to see out of the budget?

[00:01:42]>> I I certainly agree uh a bit of belt tightening would be very useful. There is no question that we can't just gallop into the next decade uh without a strong plan to reign in not only the federal uh fiscal position but also the states and territories where I really do think uh particularly in states like Victoria, we've kind of uh lost control of the train. It's it's a little bit of a runaway down there and I really want that discipline to uh be seen across all levels of government. On the housing front, clearly uh we need more supply in this country and so Tuesday night has to be about protecting in particular new supply. If there are tax changes that are adverse to investment in new supply, that will be a big problem for >> Well, we're going to get to that housing issue very, very shortly as well. It's one of the big issues out of this budget. There's no doubt. Barnaby Joyce, what do you want to see out of the budget rather than what you expect to see in the budget?

[00:02:34]>> I want to see uh honesty, Ross. Uh as an accountant, I want the uh the document to come forward with the sort of uh for forensic um placement of where what our actual position is because I believe that it would never pass must what they're going to provide would never pass muster at any board. We have for instance, I'll give you one uh snowy hydro 2.02 zero $2 billion initially.

[00:02:57]It's now up to $42 billion, but they won't book an impairment, which is for your listeners where you actually put in the honest value of the asset and book the loss. And we've got so many of these things in this tripe called our climate change policy and climate change department where it's a rano which was 650 now to 58.8 billion. We're on the hook in the capacity investment schemes, secret agreements, commercial and confidence. Can't see the details of them. And in the budget papers, you will see once more NFP not for publication.

[00:03:30]This document has no validity. And we haven't even seen it unless we get our nation back to really focusing on the getting the efficacy out of assets, making assets really work so you don't have to borrow the money or tax the pants off people, then um then Australia really has problems. It's all right.