Tax cuts, Medicare, housing, roads highlighted in Budget

THE 2026 Federal Budget was handed down to the public by the Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday evening 12 May.

Ballarat MP, and infrastructure, transport, regional development and local government minister Catherine King said on Wednesday morning the Budget was structured to help with cost of living pressures, healthcare accessibility, and the challenges of first-home buying.

“The Budget builds on a fairer and more sustainable tax system for all Australians,” she said.

A $1,000 instant tax deduction is expected in the 2026 to 2027 financial year, and about 3.4 million Victorians are expected to benefit from a $250 Working Australians Tax Offset (WATO) between 2027 and 2028.

The Medicare levy threshold for low income earners is increasing at a time where King said there are “31 new bulk billing clinics across Ballarat,” and that part of the $25 billion allocated to boosting public hospitals would flow to the Ballarat Base Hospital.

King said 1678 people have bought their first home in Ballarat under the 5% Deposit Scheme, but there’s now a focus in this Budget on housing supply.

“We’ve announced a $2 billion local infrastructure fund for housing which is part of the Housing Support Program, and $500 million of that is reserved specifically for regional Australia,” she said.

“That will help local councils to free up some of the costs of these new housing builds so the Commonwealth can pay for the road, water or sewage connection and then defray the cost so that we’ve got more developers able to build new homes.

“That’s a lot of what we’re doing in supply as well as money for new home builds, new home assistance for people in homelessness accommodation as well.

“But the incentive for investors is now skewing the market to such an extent it is making is very difficult for people to buy an existing home for the first time.

“Tax changes there designed to do to continue to incentivise new builds – so people can still negatively gear and have capital gains tax concessions on new builds – but we’re winding those back for existing homes from last night (Tuesday 12 May), and that provides a more level playing field for people in our community to continue to live where they were born or come back if they’ve moved away.”

In her own portfolio, King said the Budget continues to “lock in the doubling of the Roads to Recovery Program.”

“It’s making sure every one of our local councils continues to get long-term certainty of road funding from the Commonwealth,” she said.

Over four years, $750 million has been allocated to the Growing Regions and Thriving Suburbs programs which respectively back regional, rural and remote infrastructure and urban, suburban and peri-urban community infrastructure projects.

“We’ve brought forward the Financial Assistance Grants to local government because we’re conscious at the moment they are experiencing increased costs because of the global fuel crisis,” King said.

“There will be new rounds of the Community Infrastructure Programs – both the Growing Regions Program and the Stronger Communities Program – so that’s good news for people wanting to apply for those programs.

“We’ve already seen a great benefit from infrastructure spending on community infrastructure spending in our region already.”

King said the Budget accounts for about $3 billion spent on halving the fuel excise.

“But also…the road user charge that means our freight companies have been able to continue to deliver goods across the country as we deal with a global (fuel) crisis that we’re unclear when we’ll see the end of,” she said.

The Budget also states the $20,000 instant asset write-off will be permanent from 2027 in support of small businesspeople.

For more information, visit budget.gov.au