The Federal Budget Reality Check with Economist Leith van Onselen
5/20/202656 min
Leith van Onselen is one of Australia's most credible economists and a straight-talking critic of government policy.
In this episode, we dissect the Albanese government's latest budget and its real impact on inflation, housing affordability, and living standards. Leith explains why this isn't tax reform but simply a tax grab, how immigration policy is driving the housing crisis, and why Australia's productivity growth ranks among the worst in the OECD. We explore the disconnect between headline GDP figures and per capita reality, the expansion of the government-funded sector, and what this means for future generations.
We get into:
• Why the budget won't help with inflation or interest rates
• How immigration policy is crush-loading housing and infrastructure
• The productivity crisis dragging down living standards
• Government sector expansion crowding out private enterprise
• Capital gains tax changes that could kill startup innovation
• Bracket creep silently increasing everyone's tax burden
• The 30% minimum CGT targeting self-funded retirees
Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/
Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://mentored.com.au/newsletter
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMark Bouris· Host0:00
Leith van Onselen, welcome back, mate Yeah.
Leith van Onselen· Guest0:02
Good day, Mark. Thanks for having me back on Been a really busy week or so.
Mark Bouris· Host0:05
Um, of course, the budget was last week. Um, and by now, what's good about doing this interview for me anyway right now is I've sort of started to absorb and sort of think through the budget a lot more, both from lots of points of views, [chuckles] not the least of which is my own personal point of view, but, but also, you know, the personal-- the points of view of, of the community that listens to me and, um, to some extent, listens to you too. We've got slightly different communities, but nonetheless. But let me just start off right from the very beginning. The thing that really bothers a lot of people these days is interest rates, and they're meant to bother people because that's exactly what the Reserve Bank's mandate is, is to change our behavior through, uh, increasing interest rates. And interest rates, and inflation more importantly, are sensitive to fiscal policy. Uh, last week's budget is a piece of fiscal policy, maybe. Um, what do you see that budget as doing relative to inflation?
Leith van Onselen· Guest1:05
Yeah. So I don't think that budget on its own is gonna really change the trajectory that we were on beforehand. So unfortunately, you know, we, we-- let-- if we go, if we step back a few months, right? So before the war in the Middle East kicked off at the end of February, we had obviously higher inflation than what the RBA wanted. So core inflation was above the target.
Mark Bouris· Host1:22
It was three point eight- Yeah ... and three point three- That's right ... trimmed.
Leith van Onselen· Guest1:24
That, yeah, spot on. So, so, you know, it was above the target, and the RBA obviously responded by doing the first rate hike,