With now depressing familiarity, it is clear that Albanese government policy is about crushing opportunity for everyday Australians.
By positioning itself as the arbiter of fairness, there is plenty of lecturing about fixing “intergenerational equity” as if it will suddenly produce a glut of cheap homes our kids can snap up.
Do not be seduced by this noble crusade, which operates in real time as a government hunting for savings ahead of the May 12 budget and deciding older Australians and taxpayers with the temerity to work hard and buy an investment property are the easiest target.
These “investors” who are so on the nose for the Canberra glitterati include teachers, nurses, small business owners and the like who purchased a second property as a retirement plan because the strategy of mainlining our bulging benefits vein was inconceivable.
Consider that in light of our horror show NDIS, now a $50 billion operation heavily compromised by scams and subsidy entitlement at the expense of those who genuinely need help.
The socialism-infused game here is one of pandering to welfare whilst going after people for working hard and not wanting to rely on said welfare.
Changes to capital gains tax and scrapping the over 65s private health insurance top-up are just two of the reforms barrelling towards us.
Taking an axe to superannuation benefits too, of course, is always the prize.
Before pushing through moves like this, all of it should have been put to voters at an election but, clearly, that was a risk this government was not prepared to take.
So what we have instead is the politics of envy and what a terrible example it sets for our younger generation.
A steady drip of policies framed as fairness but experienced as punishment.
My eldest is a 22-year-old tradie who frequently speculates how he will ever afford to buy a home in Australia.
But, unlike the Federal Government, he and his mates in the same boat appreciate that older Australians have paid into the system through raising families and higher taxes to build the economy younger generations will inherit.
When Health Minister Mark Butler fronted the cameras on Wednesday, he said the extra private health subsidy means “two households on the same income receive different levels of government support, based only on their age.”
“That’s not fair between generations.”
In 2026, this Howard Government-era policy was hard to justify, Mr Butler argued, even though this was the deal: pay your premiums, ease pressure on public hospitals and receive a modest rebate in return.
To pretend their circumstances are identical to someone decades earlier in life is deliberately misleading.
Not fair, to coin Mr Butler’s phrase.
Make private insurance less attractive and some people – yes this will inevitably include elderly Australians who naturally need more hospital treatment – will drop it.
More patients will flow back into the public system.
Meanwhile, owning a second property is being treated like insider trading.
Australia has a supply problem.
That is not controversial but the government wants to penalise the very people who fund the rental supply.
Solve the problem and we will tax you harder, in other words.
If we weaken incentives to invest through capital gains changes or other tax levers, it does not trigger a neat drop in prices and universal applause.
And Labor’s plan to tax unrealised gains on super balances above $3 million is framed, predictably, as a measure that only affects a tiny wealthy minority.
Nothing to see here, we have been told, because it is just the top end of town paying their fair share.
But our tax system has always rested on a simple idea: you pay tax on income you actually receive.
This proposal detonates that.
And thresholds can conveniently be moved, as we know.
Now the message is: succeed too much and the state will revise the terms.
Taken together, these policies tell a consistent story that a spend-crazy government has run out of ideas and thinks the solution is to reshape our attitude to financial success in life.
As of this month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says in its report for the 2025 financial year that our total Federal Government debt has surpassed $1.6 trillion.
It is a 13 per cent increase from the previous year ($1.44 trillion) and a 37 per cent increase since 2020, says highly-respected expert Adam Creighton, Chief Economist and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
When aspiration starts to look like a liability and personal financial responsibility starts to attract penalties, we end up poorer both culturally and economically.
Louise Roberts is a journalist and editor who has worked as a TV and radio commentator in Australia, the UK and the US. Louise is a winner of the Peter Ruehl Award for Outstanding Columnist in the NRMA Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism and has been shortlisted in other awards for her opinion work