The Nationals leader. Matt Canavan, has delivered his own budget reply tonight from the Senate (at least he let Angus Taylor go first).
Unsurprisingly, Canavan’s speech – while making the same promises like a new future generation fund – is even more focused on mining. abandoning climate targets and getting more people out into the regions.
He also heavily criticised Labor’s budget and the commitment to scrap negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts:
double quotation mark After four years of higher prices and lower wages, Labor has given up on Australia. This week they flew the white flag.
Labor’s budget disappears into a mess of unworkable tax increases that confuse Australians, punish aspiration. fail even to deliver the promised benefits.
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre has also excoriated the Coalition’s immigration announcement, warning the party not to chase votes with “dog-whistles, fear. division”.
The group says the policy. rhetoric around migration will have real-world consequences for communities, and that the announcement is the “clearest sign yet that [the Coalition] has abandoned migrants”.
The ASRC’s deputy chief executive, Jana Favero, said the budget reply was “pure political theatre”.
double quotation mark Not only did the speech attack. demonise migrants, but also undermined our protection system and the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum.
Taylor’s comments tonight are inflammatory and desperate.
The opposition’s policy to index tax brackets would cost about $22.5bn over four years.
The indexation rate would be tied to inflation – so. figure would change depending on the inflation rate of the day.
The policy would see the lowest two tax brackets begin being indexed from 2028-29 while the highest two brackets would be indexed from 2031-32 onwards.
Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil has come up to the press gallery to give the government’s response to the budget reply,. says the opposition came up with “uncosted nonsense”.
She says that the shadow finance minister, Claire Chandler,. the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, promised that the budget in reply would be fully costed and fully offset – which it hasn’t.
double quotation mark Instead of real answers to these problems. what they [the public] got was uncosted nonsense that won’t build a single home or pay a single bill for an Australian family.
What a joke. Instead this blew a $100bn black hole in the Coalition’s plan for our country … it means they’re coming after Medicare, they’re coming after education. they’re coming after the services that your family relies on.
You might call these classic scare tactics, that we’ve seen in Labor campaigns past. O’Neil says that the tax bracket indexation plan looks like it was developed “on the back of a napkin”.
On the immigration plan, O’Neil warned Taylor:
double quotation mark You can’t out One Nation, One Nation. If people like what Pauline Hanson is putting down, they’re going to vote for them, not for you.
In his budget reply. Taylor said a Coalition government would link the number of migrants coming into the country with the number of houses being built.
Ferguson chases a hard number out of Taylor – he won’t give an exact figure, but a rough estimate.
double quotation mark That number is likely to be 70% down from the peak. roughly 40% down from where we are now.
I’ve given you a very clear principle. It will be a very substantial reduction. because there is no way that the government is going to get their housing completions up to a level that’s going to give a bigger number than that.
After some more pushing, he says the net overseas migration number will be below 200,000. The NOM was 306,000 in 2024-25, down from 429,000 the year earlier.
Who will make up those numbers – how many will be skilled migrants. how many will be temporary or international students – is unanswered.
Angus Taylor has quickly made his way from the chamber up to the press gallery to speak to the ABC’s 7.30 program.
Host Sarah Ferguson ’s first question to Taylor is whether this is a plan to stop One Nation’s momentum.
And she asks: why is the Coalition going after permanent migrants – who pay taxes. contribute to the country – and does the party risk demonising the groups it needs to win back to win government?
Taylor says “citizenship is a privilege”:
double quotation mark Citizenship is a privilege and it’s something we want people to get something from.
If you contribute to this country, we want to contribute back and that’s what citizenship is all about. But when someone can get all the benefits without that, it becomes meaningless. If you ask Australians whether people can get access to welfare programs, without being citizens, they’d say they can’t. But they actually are. It’s costing the country a great deal.
Ferguson asks if Taylor is forcing people from. for example India or China, to renounce their citizenship in order to become an Australian citizen. Taylor replies:
double quotation mark We’re not asking anyone to give up anything. We’re saying if you want access to the privileges which we believe should be privileges of citizenship. you need to become a citizen, you need to make a choice.
Settlement Services International has slammed Taylor’s budget reply and his promise to strip welfare supports from non-citizens, including permanent residents.
The not-for-profit organisation said the proposals “risk deepening division. fearmongering” and undermining multiculturalism at a time when Australia needs unity.
SSI’s chief executive, Violet Roumeliotis, said that permanent residents already face lengthy wait times to access services,. called the move unnecessary.
double quotation mark It is deeply concerning. permanent residents who are actively contributing to Australia could be locked out of essential supports if they face hardship.
No one chooses to rely on income support. These are not ‘handouts’ – they are essential safety nets. prevent people from falling into poverty during periods of need.
Taylor ends his speech on winning back voters the Coalition has lost, admitting that there’s plenty of work to do.
He says he hopes the policies and visions he’s outlined will help voters “begin to believe again”.
Taylor has suffered poor polling since he was elected, with the Liberal party trailing One Nation in popularity. His reply also comes after his party suffered defeat to the rightwing group last weekend at the Farrer byelection.
double quotation mark There’s much work the Coalition must do to win your confidence. But with the policies I’ve announced tonight –. the vision I’ve outlined – I hope you can begin to believe again.
Believe in our promise of better government. Believe in the prospect of a fairer, freer and better Australia.
The fight starts tonight.
Angus Taylor says the Coalition will keep coal running for as long as possible – despite many coal-fired power stations shutting down across the country.
He says running more coal will get electricity prices down.
While Taylor isn’t suggesting cutting renewables altogether, we do know that it’s the cheapest form of energy generation,. using just coal and gas in the grid would make electricity 50% more expensive.
double quotation mark I announce that a Coalition government will work with coal-fired power plant owners to keep them running as long. as hard as possible.
To get electricity prices down. On fuel, the Coalition has said we will double our minimum reserves of fuel. We will invest $800m for new fuel storage to give us 1bn litres of additional capacity.
Taylor has also announced a Coalition government would create a new “future generation fund” to help pay down debt. The fund would collect 80 cents in every dollar where resource revenues are higher than forecast,. 25% of the fund would be earmarked for regional Australia.
The Coalition would also significantly increase the instant asset write off for businesses. Businesses with a turnover of less than $10m would be allowed to deduct assets of up to $50,000 on a permanent basis. up from $20,000.
A few of the policies are also Dutton-era promises – including $5bn for infrastructure for roads, water. sewerage to build more housing (which Labor has also committed $2bn to in its budget). Taylor also promises to slash the 2,000-page national construction code by 90%. make it just 200 pages – as part of a broader move to cut down and rewrite regulations.
double quotation mark With such infrastructure supported. we will unlock 400,000 new homes … We will cut red tape, which will take up to $70,000 off the cost of a new home.
Regulatory bodies created by government set rules and enforce laws – and that’s important. But under Labor, these regulators have become bigger, more powerful and overbearing. They’re regulating for regulation’s sake. They need to get out of the way.
There’s also a promise to scrap net zero and focus on extracting more resources:
double quotation mark We have an abundance of resources beneath our feet. We could be self-sufficient. re-industrialise in key areas – if we stopped locking up our resources and turbocharged digging and drilling.
Taylor is announcing billions in tax cuts – by promising to index the income tax rates to stop bracket creep. But how will the Coalition pay for it?
The opposition promises to work with the government to cut funding from the NDIS –. under Labor’s plan will save the budget more than $36bn.
Some of the other savings will come from scrapping climate policies – or “climate bureaucracy”.
Taylor promises to cut:
double quotation mark It’s [Labor’s] net zero agency. It’s power lines to nowhere. And it’s tax on the family car and you. We will end tax breaks for electric vehicles, which are overwhelmingly going to high-income Australians.
But there are other expensive measures that Taylor is committing to – like building the whole $45bn inland rail project,. scrapping Labor’s negative gearing, capital gains tax and trust reforms.
As heavily foreshadowed, the opposition has promised to drastically cut immigration, and will tie intake to new housing builds.
Taylor says. immigration will need to be significantly below the Coalition’s cap for several years to “allow the housing market to catch up”.
He uses the phrase “mass migration” – a controversial term that has been heavily disputed. including by members of his own party.
double quotation mark By inviting in too many people too quickly, we’ve seen some come with the wrong values. People who don’t want to join and embrace Australia, but people who want to change Australia to suit them …
The Coalition will deliver one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history. Our immigration cut will complement our plan to lift immigration standards.
Immigration has been a core issue for the new Liberal leader – though he has already been accused (including by One Nation) of copying Pauline Hanson.
Angus Taylor will promise to index income tax brackets – a bold move that will be welcomed by many,. will be enormously costly (in the billions each year).
The opposition leader begins his address outlining his “vision for a fairer, freer. better Australia for all”, and giving us a few familiar lines attacking Labor’s budget, which he again calls an “assault on aspiration”.
double quotation mark If you’re feeling poorer under this government, it’s because you are. Labor is stealing from you with inflation.
Labor’s budget isn’t intergenerational fairness – it’s intergenerational fraud.
The Tax Back Guarantee, as he calls it, will begin indexing the bottom two tax thresholds to inflation from 2028-29,. the top two brackets from 2031-32.
It’s a big policy announcement, and would cost billions of dollars each year. Taylor says the first tranche of the policy will “fully protect 85% of income earners. with relief of around $250 in year one, growing to more than $1,000 a year in year four”. The second stage would cover all taxpayers.
double quotation mark This is generational tax reform. It’s fair, simple and honest.
Any government that wants to tax Australians more should have the courage to front up. to take that tax increase to an election. Under Labor, Australians work harder, pay more and fall behind. Under the Coalition, Australians will keep more and get ahead.
Passengers from hantavirus ship depart Netherlands for Perth
Before we get into the address. the government has provided an update that the six passengers being repatriated from the hantavirus ship have now left the Netherlands.
The flight is due to arrive in Perth tomorrow.
The government is repatriating four Australian citizens, one permanent resident. one New Zealand citizen who are being accompanied by medical personnel.
All have tested negative to hantavirus.
The passengers will be transported to the WA Centre for National Resilience in Bullsbrook for an initial three week quarantine period.
Welcome back to our coverage of the budget reply.
Angus Taylor will begin speaking shortly at 7.30pm AEST,. we’ll bring you live updates of his address and all the reaction.
We’re going to take a short break on the blog,. come back for Angus Taylor ’s budget-in-reply speech at 7.30. The Nationals leader. Matt Canavan, will also be doing his own budget reply speech in the Senate after the opposition leader.
In the meantime, here are all the key moments of today:
Independent Tasmanian senator, Tammy Tyrrell announced she would join Labor in a surprise move.
Pauline Hanson said the opposition was copying her policy on migration. while the Greens said the One Nation leader was living “ rent-free ” in Taylor’s head.
The Greens also accused the government of pushing “immoral” reforms to the NDIS through parliament, in an impassioned speech.
A federal court found Coles misled shoppers with its “Down Down” promotions.
The NSW government took a swipe at federal Labor over its budget allocations to the states,. promised not to “go quiet”.
Tim Wilson has denied that targeting migrants by stripping social welfare supports. tying migrant intake to housing build is politically risky for the Coalition.
The Liberal party was warned in the last election review to not target migrants, who had left the party in droves – both in 2022. 2025.
Also joining the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, the shadow treasurer backed the announcements that Taylor will make in his speech tonight.
double quotation mark I don’t think [the policy is politically risky] at all. As a principle, it is whether the access of these programs are there for Australian citizens …
Many European countries are heading in a similar trajectory because it is under in part of the social licence of the migration program, increasingly a lot of countries are saying that if they want to continue to support people to come in, to be building the future of the country, it has to be on the basis of they come, commit. contribute.
Wilson says that money will be saved by the policy – but won’t yet reveal the figure.
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