The tilt of this budget was, when you think about it, predictable.

The Albanese government has used the first budget of its second term to do what you’d expect a Labor government that had won a massive majority would do.

It doesn’t have a mandate to implement its key changes on housing taxes. Quite the opposite. But its sweeping 2025 election win has given it the political heft.

In its first term, Labor shifted the industrial relations system decisively towards workers.

Now, at the start of term two, Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ fifth budget cracks down on the tax treatment of housing and trusts, and delivers new (modest) tax relief to those in the workforce.

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten may be smiling, or crying. He proposed changing negative gearing and capital gains tax at the 2019 election and lost the almost unloseable election. It’s taken a few years for Labor to be able to get back to those issues.

During the 2025 campaign, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denied he had any intention of going down such a road. Post-election, he began packing his bags for the journey.

Negative gearing will........

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