💸 Everything You Need To Know About The 2025 Budget

Mark Riley joins Jonesy & Amanda with everything you need to know about the 2025 Budget. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jersey and Amanda jam Nation. Well.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
The twenty twenty five federal budget took place in Canberra overnight,
Treasurer Jim Chalmers hanging down his seventeen billion dollar budget plan.
There's a lot to unpack. Who are the winners, who
are the losers. We're joined now by seven News political
editor Mike Riley.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, Mark hey MANA Hey Jasey, Mark.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
What are you going to do with that five? But
you're getting ex for a week now?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Oh well, I don't know. Maybe I'll buy an old
sting cyd or police leed. You know, there's a bit
of controversy about that. You know, five dollars next year,
five dollars a year after, and it's going to be
the central debate now on the election campaign. It's all
about tax. Is always going to be about cost of living,

(00:42):
but now it's going to be about tax. Last night,
Angus Taylor, the Shadow Treasurer, was saying it was an
offensive small amount and that they're going to vote against it.
Pretty brave move to send in the way of any
tax cut, frankly, so they've got an alternative that there
is more too. Jim Charmers explained it as a top

(01:04):
up payment, so top up tax cut. So we're getting
forty dollars average off a week through the Stage three
tax cuts, and this is an additional two five dollars
on top of that to fifty dollars in two years,
which means that as you're paying more taxing what we
call bracket creep. Isn't it a great term? As you

(01:25):
creep up the tax brackets as your wage increases and
you pay more in tax, governments get billions of dollars
out of that. This will return that money back into
your pocket. So it's a way of approaching bracket creep.
So people don't get bigger tax bills, like exponentially bigger
tax bills, they earn a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
And who are the other winners? What do you think
was the big brush strike.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Brought everyone the winner? You know this is a pre
election budget, so you know the list of winners is
as long as your arm. And the losers are mostly
foreign investors and other people who don't place. And it's
almost in every area. Think about a lot of the
bigger announcements from maybe before this budget, right, they didn't

(02:09):
really expect to have it. We thought we'd be after
the races on an election campaign, this would be week three,
but if not for ex cyclone Alfred, that changed all
the plans. So this is really option but having the
budget and then waiting for a later election. So we
know the big stuff, like the eight point five billion
dollars to increase bulk billings, so you go to the doctor,

(02:30):
you don't pay a gap if you can find a
bulk billing doctor, and there'll be more of them with
those incentives. You've got the urgent care clinics. We know
about one hundred and fifty dollars in the energy rebate
which has been extended, so seventy five dollars a quarter
for every quarter up until the end of this year.
Then the government will review that, so that helps a bit.

(02:52):
And you know, there was a number of other smaller
announcements are made along the way to this budget we
already knew about in the In particular, are a few things
here that are quite interesting. I reckon. The one that's
a bit of a sleeper is these non compete clauses
in contracts. So I must admit I was a little

(03:12):
bit surprised by how widespread these are. So you're talking
about now this is not high flying execs or there,
I say, radio stars who have these here the golden handcuffs.
This is in industries like construction and hairdressers and childcare,
and these non compete clauses essentially shackle you to a job,

(03:35):
so you if someone offers you more money to go
somewhere else, you're prevented from doing that. And they've just
sort of wheedled their way into contracts over years and
by by stealth and spread. Last night, Jim Charmons was
saying about a million workers who had these components as
part of the contracts and probably aren't aware of it.

(03:56):
So what they're going to do is ban that. That
means that you have a little bit more flexibility in
your work life. You can take that other job, and
the analysis the Treasury is done says that if you do,
you're probably about two and a half thousand dollars better
off a year in higher wages by being unshackled from
these contracts. It's pretty big.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
It's good news for us because next year we are
starting up our own barber salon. Oh yeah, mullet, whatever
you want, Mark whatever.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
I wouldn't mind going back to the mart. You know,
I'm turning blonde again or sort of grond.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
But anyway, as you do, you think this is an
election winning budget if.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Certainly, if they're good enough, Amanda, that's the point. You know,
what they've got is exactly what they wanted, which is
a fight on cost of living and tax relief. So
we don't know what the other side of that fight
is yet. We don't know what the oppositions packing will
find out on Thursday night when it does his budget reply,
So they're going to have to have something that's bigger

(05:00):
and better than this because they're standing in the way
that tax cut. So but if if the government's good enough,
yes it can win on this. The point, really, I
think is that what I've been sensing over the last
few weeks is the government's just starting to get something
that it hasn't had for six months, and that's a
little bit of momentum. It's not huge, but things are
just starting to move in its favor a little bit,

(05:21):
so the poles are turned over. It was fifty one
forty nine behind, it's now fifty one to forty nine ahead.
It's only a little bit, but it's enough. And in
this game, when you get momentum, you build it, you
chuck a saddle on it, you jump on it, and
you write it to an election as quickly as it can.
So I reckon, I reckon, They're off on the weekend.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
That's a good analogy. We sit down there for the
grind or or the Dunton Special, which is totally all wrong.
Mike Riley, thank you for joining us for all the
latest coverage What's seven News tonight at six on seven
make Riley thank you

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Thanks so much, going thanks Marke