Summary

The significant budget announcements were in line with media reporting and pre-positioning over recent days. In many ways the Budget is much more interventionist in its strategy – aiming to boost growth in critical areas and directly easing cost of living pressures.

In terms of new policy announcements, the key headlines include the Future Made in Australia program (including solar panel manufacturing in the Hunter Valley and Quantum computing investments) and the extension of the small business instant asset write-off applicable to around 4 million businesses. There is also a health package with around $3.4bn for new PBS medicines and a freeze in the price of PBS medicines for a year for all individuals and 5 years for pensioners.

The education sector sees some significant policy announcements with cuts to HECS debts (around $3bn on 2023 indexation). A student cap has been introduced but the exact amount will depend on a formula including how much accommodation each university provides for their students.

In addition to the stage 3 tax cuts, cost of living relief comes via the Energy bill relief packages ($3.4bn) and the rental assistance package ($2bn). Beyond that there are large spending programs on funding wage increases in aged-care and childcare sectors.

With added spending in these areas and the increased drag from lower commodity prices and a weaker labour market alongside the stage 3 tax cuts the Budget surplus of around $9.3bn in 2023-24 quickly returns to deficits of around $28.3bn in 2024-25 and nearer $43bn in 2025-26. The potential for more election-related spending remains a risk.

Overall, the budget is expected to see a small structural deterioration over the next few years but with some claw back into 2026-27 and beyond. The Government’s own parameter estimates suggest that just about all the deterioration in the budget position is from new expenditure. Meaningful attempts to address structural deficits have been pushed out though Australia’s debt position remains low by international standards.

Economic outlook & implications

While the decisions taken in this year’s budget are on balance a loosening in policy, they only marginally add to the RBA’s difficulty in returning inflation to target and our initial assessment is they do not have a material impact on our expectations for the growth outlook or the path of inflation and monetary policy.

In terms of the economic outlook, the expected pattern of forecasts is broadly similar to ours with Treasury expecting GDP growth around 2% in 2024/25 and 2.3% in 2025- 26. We are at 1.9% and 2.3% in 2025-26. We are however more concerned about the very short run outlook (Treasury 1¾%, NAB 1.5%). Our labour market outlook is similar to the Treasury with unemployment peaking around 4½% by mid-2024, and likewise we see wage growth peaking around current growth rates (4¼%) and edging down somewhat in the out years.

Notably, the Budget forecasts a more rapid improvement in inflation in the near term than we or the RBA have been expecting, seeing headline inflation of 2.75% by mid-2025 (NAB 3.0%, RBA 3.2%). This largely reflects the impact of energy and rent subsidies on measured inflation – an effect which the RBA is certain to look through when setting monetary policy. Nonetheless, at this stage we don’t see the fiscal deterioration as being sufficient to change our rate view, still seeing rates on hold until late this year.

For further details, read the full report 2024-25 Federal Budget