A budget lock-up is a strange event, involving hours of wading through budget papers, conferring with colleagues and racing towards a 7.30pm deadline, powered by a smorgasbord of snacks. There’s no internet or smartphones; the Sydney team chatted with our Canberra friends on a phone with a handset. For those of us old enough to remember life without the constant ping of mobile phone messages, it felt pleasantly early ’90s.
The amount of organisation that goes into a budget lock-up is enormous. A team of at least 50 tech, administration, support and editorial production staff began meeting in December to plan and test for budget day. Our systems and technologies for both print and the website have to be reconfigured to operate entirely offline, to adhere to the Treasury’s strict confidentiality rules. All for the six-hour window from when the budget papers are released until the treasurer starts his speech.
It’s a huge, complex undertaking, and it runs smoothly thanks to the incredible work of our production guru Michael Gadd, our Canberra bureau chief Michelle Griffin, and our national content director Chris Paine.
Every year, as the embargo lifts, readers rush to the Herald‘s website for the opinions of our experts, such as economics editor Ross Gittins and political editor Peter Hartcher, and to read the analysis and news from our political and economics writers. They always love the illustrations on the front page – this year’s cracker, by Cathy Wilcox, was a lighthearted rendering of Treasurer Jim Chalmers bursting the Boomers’ bubble.
Often, though, budgets can be incremental and prosaic. This one wasn’t. The Labor government’s decision to reform negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts was enormously consequential for many Australians, who suddenly had to re-think their investment strategies. Readers can get a quick summary of the budget in our five-minute version, or in this video of Gittins and economics writer Millie Muroi answering readers’ questions.
Reader responses to the budget were varied. Some were angered by the government’s decision to break its pre-election undertaking to steer clear of CGT and negative gearing, and they felt the reforms were unfair. Others reckoned there was merit in the argument that circumstances – such as the housing affordability crisis – demand bold action, and that Australia’s failure over many electoral cycles to attempt such boldness is holding the country back.
On budget night, the Herald endorsed Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ decision to overhaul taxes on investment in the hope that a reshaping of property market dynamics will pave the way for more young Australians to buy a home, but we pointed out there’s more to be done.
Boldness, it appears, is in the air. In his budget reply on Thursday night, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor pledged to end bracket creep and to index tax brackets to inflation, another big – albeit expensive – reform that many economists think is long overdue. As Hartcher will write in his column tomorrow, Australia has not seen such reform ambition for 25 years, since John Howard introduced the goods and services tax.
This boldness comes hot on the heels of One Nation’s thumping victory in the Farrer byelection, which was a historic moment in Australian politics; the first time in its 30 years the party has had a candidate elected to the lower house. Traditional parties were walloped. The Liberal Party lost three quarters of its vote from last year’s election, and the Nationals polled only 9.7 per cent of the primary vote. Labor was spared scrutiny because it didn’t run a candidate.
The major parties are on notice that voters are fed up with the status quo, and this week’s bold budget announcements suggest they are getting the message. We’re entering an interesting era in Australian politics.
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