Krafted. BUDGET DAY

Today, is the day $$

The Treasurer (perhaps, obviously!) delivers the 2026-27 Budget speech at 7.30pm tonight, his fifth to date. What happens today around the speech:

1. Question Time at 2pm will be entirely Budget-flavoured. The Opposition will try to set the narrative before the Treasurer gets to. An interesting part of the flavour this year is the outcome of the Farrer by-election on the weekend, delivering One Nation's first-ever seat in the House of Representatives.

2. The 'lock-up' for credentialled media and analysts, together with selected representatives from non government organisations directly affected by spending measures, opens this afternoon for early and detailed review of the Portfolio Budget Statements.

3. The Budget papers are formally tabled after the speech. The full set — Budget Paper No. 1 through No. 4 plus Portfolio Budget Statements for every government portfolio — will be available at (aph.gov.au) and Treasury websites as the speech is delivered.

Key aspects (by interest area) of Budget already announced:

• Health; Aged Care: $1.8 billion for Urgent Care Clinics, $25 billion hospitals agreement, aged care and NDIS packages; fraud and non-compliance (savings) measures across MBS and PBS
• Housing: $2 billion for housing infrastructure supporting 65,000 new homes plus $3.1 billion for 100,000 more
• Defence: $53 billion uplift over the forward estimates and beyond to reach 3% of GDP by 2033
• Energy; Tax/ Taxation: a temporary fuel tax cut worth more than $2.5 billion, $10 billion for fuel stockpiles
• Tax/ Taxation: two more income tax cuts, changes to Capital Gains Tax, changes to taxation around early stage investment
• Budget; Savings: $2.7 billion in savings from reduced APS spending on external labour, travel and property by 2029–30, savings required in every portfolio (as has been the case for the last 15 Budgets with the exception of FY2020-21)
• Fiscal; Economy/ Economics: stated pressures include tens of billions from PBS indexation, natural disasters, and higher debt yields, with revenue down in some years due to slower growth and a higher exchange rate. Inflation being the key yet-to-be stated pressure.

Related to Budget, is the recommendations made by the report tabled yesterday by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for its inquiry into the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Regulations 2026. Key points are:

• The committee supports the underpinning regulations to the Bill; payday super, which requires employers to pay superannuation on payday rather than quarterly will start 1 July 2026. The ACTU and Super Members Council pushed for removing exemptions for employer-paid parental leave (which is not required to include super) and for domestic and private workers. The committee has flagged this in its report but has not supported the request
• The committee endorsed extending super to under-18s in principle but not yet in practice - this is the main point of contention with the Bill. It said embedding the new payday super system should come first, and that extending coverage to under-18s would need consultation with unions, employers and further impact work; the Greens filed a dissenting report to this.

Another big day tomorrow with the flood of post-speech analysis. I'll be focusing on what you need to know about how the policymaking and Parliament's processes will flow to enable the Budget's measures to be implemented (or not!).

— Mia