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Speaker 1: All a right to go from The Australian. Here's what's

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Speaker 1: on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's our special episode

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Speaker 1: fresh from the Federal Budget Lockup.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Budget twenty twenty four to twenty five

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Speaker 2: lock Up. I'm not bringing mobile phones or smart watches

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Speaker 2: into the lockup or gets documents, just to make sure

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Speaker 2: that not publish, transmit, release, or disclose in any manner

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Speaker 2: budget information until the embargo.

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Speaker 3: Is left it.

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Speaker 1: We'll take you behind the scenes as the Australians journalists

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Speaker 1: break down the budget inside Treasuries secure embargoed lockup at

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Speaker 1: Federal Parliament in Canberra.

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Speaker 4: So the money's really going out yeah, absence of a productivity.

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Speaker 2: Yes, probably low balling.

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Speaker 1: And will break down the spin to work out what

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Speaker 1: this budget means for your business and household. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot to read in this Federal budget and luckily our

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Speaker 1: experts have done the hard work for you. You can

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Speaker 1: check out their frank analysis right now at the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot com dot a.

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Speaker 4: U Kelly, thank you, Thank you, Patrick.

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Speaker 5: Brazie Lewis.

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Speaker 1: My name's Green Brown. A bigger than expected nine point

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Speaker 1: three billion dollar surplus this year, followed by deficits over

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Speaker 1: the coming four years. That's the top line from Jim

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Speaker 1: Chalmer's third federal budget. Today, we explore why the Federal

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Speaker 1: government is raking in more cash and spending much more

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Speaker 1: than expected, and what it all means for the government's

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Speaker 1: chances at the next election and all of our futures.

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Speaker 4: The greatest in the galaxy.

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Speaker 6: These are my daughters, character me and for father's it's

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Speaker 6: the least true thing that you'll read today.

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Speaker 4: Well, we want to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: Walking around the budget lockup inside Federal Parliament on Tuesday,

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Speaker 1: Jim Charmer was wearing socks chosen by his daughters which

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Speaker 1: said Galaxy's greatest Dad. The Treasurer was in a very

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Speaker 1: good mood, you d allous, And why shouldn't he be

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Speaker 1: in a good mood? The Treasurer feels this is a

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Speaker 1: budget that's going to achieve one of his biggest goals,

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Speaker 1: squashing inflation while helping households manage the cost of living.

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Speaker 1: That's a huge challenge, handing out Lolly's while preventing a

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Speaker 1: giant sugar rush. Dennis Anahan is The Australian's National editor. Dennis,

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Speaker 1: what sort of budget is this?

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Speaker 4: Well, it's a parachute budget. Clear this is if the

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Speaker 4: Labor government wants to hit the election silk this year

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Speaker 4: instead of when the election is due by May twenty five,

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Speaker 4: they can.

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Speaker 1: This is Jim Chalmer's third budget in the Albanese government,

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Speaker 1: and the Prime Minister has hinted there'll be another budget

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Speaker 1: in March to set the government up for the next election,

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Speaker 1: which is due to be held by May. Paul Kelly

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Speaker 1: is The Australian's Editor at large.

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Speaker 7: This is an audacious, high risk budget which exposes the

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Speaker 7: true character of the Labor Party and the fact that

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Speaker 7: it's dominated by the Treasurer, Jim Charmers. There's a conflict

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Speaker 7: between economics and politics. This has been the Treasurer's dilemma.

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Speaker 7: It's the dilemma of the Albanese government. The great risk

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Speaker 7: is that the government has opted for significant spending increases

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Speaker 7: over the next couple of years. What will that mean

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Speaker 7: for the economy and inflation? That is the great trap,

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Speaker 7: and the government's fortunes will rest on how that plays out.

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Speaker 6: A tax cut for every taxpayer, wages growing in every industry,

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Speaker 6: a better deal for every working parent, a fair ago

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Speaker 6: at every checkout.

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Speaker 1: Before every budget, the politicians drip out the good things

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Speaker 1: they want to shout about and the nasty bits they

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Speaker 1: want to get out of the way. Early we already

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Speaker 1: knew the government had dramatically rejigged the so called Stage

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Speaker 1: three tax cuts to ensure more money went to lower

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Speaker 1: paid Australians. We knew there'd be an eleven billion dollar

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Speaker 1: housing package, three hundred and thirty billion on new defense spending,

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Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty seven million for twenty nine new

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Speaker 1: urgent care Medicare clinics, and a big spend on what

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Speaker 1: the government's calling Future Made in Australia, supporting manufacturing and

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Speaker 1: production on shore. We knew the government would be wiping

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Speaker 1: three billion dollars in student debt for over three million Australians.

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Speaker 1: Here's the new stuff. The Future Made in Australia spend

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Speaker 1: will be twenty two point seven billion dollars, a huge

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Speaker 1: increase on what the government had already announced, and there's

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Speaker 1: an extra seven point eight billion in cost of living relief.

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Speaker 1: The biggest components of that are one point nine billion

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Speaker 1: dollars in Commonwealth rent assistance that'll benefit nearly one million households,

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Speaker 1: and there will be three point five billion dollars to

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Speaker 1: cut energy bills for every household. As charm has explained

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Speaker 1: during his budget speech to Parliament, as soon as the

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Speaker 1: lock up ended.

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Speaker 6: From July one, Australians will receive an energy rebate of

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Speaker 6: three hundred dollars and one million small businesses will get

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Speaker 6: a little bit more.

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Speaker 1: That's a huge amount of money to pump into the economy,

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Speaker 1: but pumping money into the economy usually pushes inflation up.

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Speaker 1: More spending equals prices going up, and that leads to

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Speaker 1: the Reserve Bank trying to squash inflation by raising interest rates.

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Speaker 1: That's what the Treasurer is trying to deal with.

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Speaker 4: It's a bit of a trick. It's an accounting trick

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Speaker 4: if you like. He says himself, housing and energy are

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Speaker 4: the big pressures. What he is doing is his saying

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Speaker 4: we are going to give every household, it's not means tested,

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Speaker 4: every household three hundred dollars rebate off their electricity. Now,

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Speaker 4: his argument is that you will actually reduce inflation because

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Speaker 4: what you're not giving people cash, you're actually reducing the bill.

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Speaker 4: So statistically, when the ABS looks at energy bills, there

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Speaker 4: will be three hundred dollars cheaper and he's used taxpayers

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Speaker 4: money to do it.

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Speaker 1: So instead of getting a check for three hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: from the government, my three hundred dollars will go to

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Speaker 1: my energy provider.

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Speaker 4: You're not going to get a cash bonus where you

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Speaker 4: can run off and buy a color television set. It

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Speaker 4: will be absolutely tied to your energy bill. And that's

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Speaker 4: why it will reduce inflation, the Treasury says by half

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Speaker 4: a percentage point by Christmas. Same on housing, they reduce

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Speaker 4: the cost of housing of rental through the rebate and

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Speaker 4: then that reduces the rental headline figure. So that's how

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Speaker 4: they do it, is they use our money to then say, well,

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Speaker 4: we've cut inflation for you.

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Speaker 1: By the way, Dennis has been covering budgets for more

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Speaker 1: than four decades and one of his specialties is digging

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Speaker 1: through the papers for tidbits.

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Speaker 4: Every budget. I love to look at the Risks pages.

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Speaker 4: There are all sorts of things there, you know, possibility

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Speaker 4: of another outbreak of cane toads or whatever. But the

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Speaker 4: classic this year was the fact that we're going to

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Speaker 4: have to take out one hundred million dollars in insuperant

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Speaker 4: in case an Australian rocket falls on a foreign person overseas.

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Speaker 1: Do we have any rockets?

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Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if we have any rockets. I

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Speaker 4: just hope they stay in the air.

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Speaker 1: One of the big questions the journos in the press

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Speaker 1: gallery were asking as they picked apart the budget is

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Speaker 1: when's the next election going to be. Australia has three

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Speaker 1: year terms for federal governments, but that's a maximum. Prime

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Speaker 1: ministers can request the Governor General call an election anytime.

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Speaker 1: That means Anthony Albanezi could bring on the election anytime

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Speaker 1: between now and May twenty twenty five. Budgets have a cycle.

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Speaker 1: The first budget of a new government is usually tough.

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Speaker 1: That's where governments make all the hard cuts they've been

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Speaker 1: itching to do. The cartoonists for papers like The Australian

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Speaker 1: tend to draw the treasurer as a grim reaper slashing

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Speaker 1: his sive. The closer to an election we get, the

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Speaker 1: more governments try to make voters feel good about them.

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Speaker 1: By the time an election is looming, the treasure returns

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Speaker 1: into the easter buney, everybody gets some chocolate.

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Speaker 3: There's seven point eight billion dollars in new cost of

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Speaker 3: living relief measures. These are measures on top of the

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Speaker 3: tax cuts we already knew were coming, and what we've

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Speaker 3: been able to discover by talking to the Treasury officials

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Speaker 3: in budget lock up is that the large bulk of

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Speaker 3: that money, three point three billion dollars of it, will

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Speaker 3: actually be spent next financial year, coincidentally, the year of

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Speaker 3: the election. This is the Australian's Rosy Lewis Anthony Albanesi

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Speaker 3: and Jim Chalmers are being more generous to all Australians

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Speaker 3: during an election year. We now have all households targeted

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Speaker 3: with the energy rebates, and they want to show that

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Speaker 3: they understand cost of living is biting for everyone, not

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Speaker 3: just low income households, which were really the focus of

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Speaker 3: last year's budget.

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Speaker 1: The other big thing the government has had to tackle

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Speaker 1: in this budget is migration, which has blown out since

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Speaker 1: the pandemic. What have we learned in this budget about

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Speaker 1: what their plan is.

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Speaker 3: Interestingly, the net overseas migration number for the twenty three

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Speaker 3: to twenty four financial year has been revised up to

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Speaker 3: three hundred and ninety five thousand, but the government still

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Speaker 3: wants to achieve its goal of halving the number to

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Speaker 3: two hundred and sixty thousand next financial year, so they're

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Speaker 3: going to have to achieve a much steeper decrease in

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Speaker 3: that number. We've learned in recent days. The way they're

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Speaker 3: going to do that is through a clamp down on

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Speaker 3: international students.

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Speaker 1: Is that primarily a cost of living thing? Do you

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Speaker 1: think rosy? Is that why they care so much about

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Speaker 1: the migration number.

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Speaker 3: They are being very careful to show that they understand

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Speaker 3: migrants do impact on housing stock, so they're ensuring that

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Speaker 3: universities actually commit to delivering more student accommodation. So if

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Speaker 3: universities can't show they have somewhere for international and local

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Speaker 3: students to live, then foreign students won't be able to

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Speaker 3: come in.

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Speaker 1: This is the kind of analysis in journalism. The Australian

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Speaker 1: subscribers get twenty four to seven a subscription is a

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Speaker 1: lot cheaper than your energy bill and we promise it

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Speaker 1: won't push inflation up. Join us at the Australian dot

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Speaker 1: com dot au. We'll be back after this. Apart from

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Speaker 1: the cost of living, the biggest issue for most Australians

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Speaker 1: right now is violence against women. After a series of

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Speaker 1: horrific murders of women allegedly perpetrated by the men who

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Speaker 1: were supposed to love and protect them. Governments at all

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Speaker 1: levels have scrambled to react with everything from bail law

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Speaker 1: reforms to new spending to tackle the problem of violent pornography.

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Speaker 8: So every year the budget includes something called the Women's Budget.

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Speaker 8: Now that is really the government's ambition for closing the

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Speaker 8: gender pay gap when it comes to women and achieving

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Speaker 8: equity most often.

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Speaker 1: Sarah Eisen is a political reporter with The Australian.

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Speaker 8: This year, there's a really marked focus billions when it

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Speaker 8: comes to research, better resourcing for the Office of Women,

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Speaker 8: including more staff that will focus specifically on gen violence.

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Speaker 8: There'll be more information sharing, There'll be mechanisms to look

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Speaker 8: at which prevention measures actually work. There'll be advisory committees

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Speaker 8: with victim survivors on them. The government really wants to

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Speaker 8: show that it's doing something when it comes to this problem.

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Speaker 1: The government's already announced the extension of something that was

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Speaker 1: a trial where women who are in a desperate situation

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Speaker 1: can access five thousand dollars of emergency support. How much

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Speaker 1: is that going to cost.

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Speaker 8: It's going to cost nearly one billion dollars. It will

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Speaker 8: be indexed as well. That means as inflation goes up,

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Speaker 8: the payment will increase at the same pace, so women

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Speaker 8: will get up to five thousand dollars. That includes fifteen

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Speaker 8: hundred dollars in cash and the rest will be in

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Speaker 8: services and support to be able to escape violence. This

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Speaker 8: is a big part of making sure women can leave

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Speaker 8: really dangerous situations, so asure, can.

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Speaker 5: I just check these Future Made in Australia a gender extent.

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Speaker 1: Before this budget lock up, we knew Future Made in

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Speaker 1: Australia was a big priority for the government, but we

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Speaker 1: didn't have a good idea of exactly what they'd be

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Speaker 1: spending on. Now we know it's twenty two billion, including

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Speaker 1: something the critical minerals industry had been lobbying for, a

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Speaker 1: seven billion dollar tax break for the companies that produce

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Speaker 1: rare earths like li lithium and nickel, which have been

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Speaker 1: struggling against a wave of minerals produced much cheaper overseas.

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Speaker 1: There will also be new tax incentives for the production

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Speaker 1: of green hydrogen. Joe Kelly is The Australian's National Affairs editor.

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Speaker 1: It'll involve giving tax breaks to billionaires to extremely wealthy

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Speaker 1: companies in the resources sector. How do you think this

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Speaker 1: will go over with voters?

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Speaker 5: I think it's an experiment. I think it's a labor

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Speaker 5: experiment which expands the role of government and I think

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Speaker 5: how it goes over is going to depend on how

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Speaker 5: successful it is. I think it will be a long

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Speaker 5: term test of Labour's economic credentials and this new vision

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Speaker 5: Jim Charmers has of forging a new economy, and I

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Speaker 5: might also add I think there are political risks as well,

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Speaker 5: because this will require least two tranches of legislation. Jim

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Speaker 5: said that today and the production tax credits will require

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Speaker 5: legislation too, so that will depend on how the Parliament

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Speaker 5: lines up, including the Coalition and the Greens. The Coalition,

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Speaker 5: I think had been a bit skeptical about this agenda

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Speaker 5: and if they opt out, if they're opposed to this

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Speaker 5: new economic vision, well then Labor will be left to

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Speaker 5: negotiate with the Greens, and I think that that might

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Speaker 5: be something that turns voters off.

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Speaker 1: The Australian's Troy Branston, who's our resident expert in the

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Speaker 1: Labor Party's history and philosophy, has spoken to the Treasurer

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Speaker 1: at length. Troy the Treasurer was wearing his Galaxy's Greatest

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Speaker 1: Dad socks. Is he the Galaxy's greatest treasurer.

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Speaker 9: Well, I think old treasurers want to be the greatest. Look,

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Speaker 9: this is a big personal moment for the treasurer. The

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Speaker 9: budget is the biggest event on the political calendar every

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Speaker 9: year when there's not an election, and he really is

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Speaker 9: driving the government's economic strategy. Bit I think also it's

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Speaker 9: political strategy. So he's very invested personally in this. He

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Speaker 9: wants to make his mark, but he also wants to

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Speaker 9: see the government re elected because one day, as we

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Speaker 9: all know, he wants to be Prime minister.

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Speaker 1: The government has just a one seat majority and the

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Speaker 1: government's dealt with a lot of challenges in this first term.

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Speaker 1: Is there a chance that Jim Chalmers would take the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to move on the leadership before the next election.

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Speaker 9: Look, he can never say never in politics, but I

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Speaker 9: think it would be extremely unlikely. I think Labor has

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Speaker 9: learnt the lessons of its last period in office, and

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Speaker 9: also the coalition's period in office as well. I don't

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Speaker 9: think there's any appetite to change the leader right now,

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Speaker 9: but there's a number of people jockeying for it. But

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Speaker 9: if you want to be a leadership contender, it's based

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Speaker 9: on your performance in your current role. So if the

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Speaker 9: economy goes pear shaped and this does lead to an

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Speaker 9: increase in inflation and the Reserve Bank pulls that trigger

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Speaker 9: and puts up interest rates again, and this will be

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Speaker 9: extremely damaging for Jim Chums. So there's a lot at

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Speaker 9: stake for him personally, for the government, and I think

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Speaker 9: for the nation as well.

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Speaker 1: He came into the job talking quite openly about not

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Speaker 1: wanting to just occupy the chair, wanting to be a

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Speaker 1: reforming treasurer. Has he turned out to be one?

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Speaker 9: Yeah, Look, it's interesting. It's still a work in progress.

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Speaker 9: But you know, in the opening of his budget speech

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Speaker 9: he said it's a budget about the here and now

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Speaker 9: and also the decades to come. Now, that's a tricky

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Speaker 9: thing to get across. And he's come up with what

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Speaker 9: he told me was a new model for economic prosperity

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Speaker 9: and growth, which is about harnessing public and private investment

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Speaker 9: in some of the new critical drivers of the economy

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Speaker 9: and to take benefit of the transition to a net

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Speaker 9: zero world. Now. I do think though, that he missed

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Speaker 9: an opportunity to really make his name as a treasurer

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Speaker 9: by not sticking with budget surpluses. You know, he has

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Speaker 9: delivered two budget surpluses now in a row. The last

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Speaker 9: treasure to do that was Pretty Costello and before him,

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Speaker 9: Paul Keating, so they're pretty rare, but he really had

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Speaker 9: an opportunity to stick with that fiscal discipline. Instead, he's

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Speaker 9: forecasting one hundred billion dollars worth of deficits over the

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Speaker 9: Ford estimate period and he's got increased spending. But really

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Speaker 9: he could have made a political and economic virtue out

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Speaker 9: of more fiscal restraint. That's what Paul Keating did, That's

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Speaker 9: what Peter Costello did, and he had such a good

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Speaker 9: opportunity because he had two budget surpluses. But now I

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Speaker 9: think he squandered that and so he's not able to

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Speaker 9: claim that mantle of fiscal responsibility and prudence, which he

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Speaker 9: also wants.

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Speaker 1: We'd love to know what you think of the budget

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Speaker 1: and have our experts answer your questions. On Wednesday night,

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Speaker 1: May fifteen, got a post budget online event with Judith Sloan,

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Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers, Sky News is Edward Boyd and Ross Greenwood

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Speaker 1: and me talking about what it all means. It's brought

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Speaker 1: to you by the Australian Plus. Visit the Australianplus dot

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Speaker 1: com dot a u slash budget. For more information and

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Speaker 1: to register now,