Lost in translation? Labor’s historic tax reforms need plain English

May 25, 2026 — 3:00am

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Historically, in an election campaign, the major political parties save up big announcements for the crunch weeks just before the vote, when the media – and therefore, the logic goes, voters – are watching.

At the last election, Labor hardheads realised the fragmentation of media meant they could not count on reaching most voters within the five or six weeks of a campaign. Instead, the government announced its big-bang health policies early in the year, giving them time to filter out through the hundreds of different channels now available.

This is a long way of saying that it is very difficult right now to discern exactly what is happening politically with the budget. It may be even harder to discern what is happening on the substance – but one step at a time.

Despite the tenor of most reporting, the early polls would not have troubled Labor. Newspoll found Labor losing no votes. The Resolve Political Monitor, in this masthead, found Labor going backwards, but moving within a range it has been in since March. Yes, there is now a debate about the broader changes to capital gains tax. But given that this budget upset decades-old assumptions about property taxes, Labor should have been thrilled there was no immediate voter revolt.

Which brings us back to Labor’s election epiphany: as news of the wider budget filters out to voters, this may change. But it is hard to say because, so far, both sides of the debate are mangling their case.

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