Federal Budget 2025: Government seeks Budget springboard into election mode

Jim Chalmers has to set up a Budget that no one thought we would have now and let his boss use it as a springboard into the election.

No pressure, Treasurer.

Expectations management is always the name of the game ahead of big political set pieces.

This Tuesday’s budget is being set up as boring and predictable.

No surprises, Dr Chalmers told reporters in a scene-setting speech last week.

That’s because the big measures have either already been announced with one eye on the election – bulk-billing, cheaper medicines, more urgent care clinics – or they’ll be kept under wraps until the campaign formally, finally gets underway.

The biggest job of this Budget is to convince voters that better times are ahead.

It’s a tricky call when grocery prices and electricity bills are still high (yes, inflation is back in the range usually known as “under control” but that doesn’t mean prices have gone backwards) and the economic hardheads are calling for spending to be significantly reined in.

The economy does look to have turned a corner with inflation down and wages growing faster – both things making consumers happier in their outlook – but there are bumpy times ahead.

Not least because Donald Trump seems hellbent on ignoring all traditional economic advice to pursue his tariffs obsession no matter who it targets.

Dr Chalmers launched his first budget in October 2022 with the acknowledgement the country needed a hard look at how it was set up for the long term.

Since then, he and Katy Gallagher have found $90 billion in savings and made moves to put the NDIS and aged care on more sustainable pathways.

But other revenue measures – relatively modest ones in comparison to the state of the Budget – have been stymied in the Senate, like lower tax concessions for high-balance superannuation accounts.

This could be the last Budget the government only has to negotiate through one chamber, if predictions of a hung Parliament are correct.

When the next one comes around, it could be independent Allegra Spender with her plans for tax reform or the Greens and their calls for billionaire taxes looking for a springboard to make their ideas reality.