{"id":602200,"date":"2026-04-12T14:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/602200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T14:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:25:19","slug":"albanese-flags-major-changes-to-maintain-public-support-and-viability-property-tax-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/602200\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese flags major changes to maintain public support and viability, property tax breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 12, 2026 \u2014 10:30pm<\/p>\n

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared the government must overhaul the NDIS to maintain its viability and ensure public support for the scheme, in an interview where he also signalled the scrapping of property tax breaks for investors could prove an antidote to the economic populism of One Nation.<\/p>\n

In some of his strongest comments yet about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, introduced by former Labor PM Julia Gillard in 2013, Albanese opened the door to wholesale changes to the initiative in the May budget.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Albanese with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NDIS was there to assist people who have a permanent incapacity to fully participate in society \u2013 that\u2019s something we need to value and cherish,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s undermined if four out of 10 kids in a class are on the NDIS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wasn\u2019t why it has that public support, and we need to make sure that we maintain public support by ensuring it\u2019s sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with this masthead during the return flight from a fuel diplomacy trip<\/a> to Singapore, Albanese also confirmed he would extend his tour through Asia next week to meet the Sultan of Brunei on Tuesday and Malaysia\u2019s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday in a bid to shore up supplies of fertiliser and fuel respectively.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Albanese (right) last month alongside Treasurer Jim Chalmers.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

Albanese ripped up his pre-budget schedule to prioritise the trip to Asia as his cabinet faces pressure to make long-awaited tax and productivity reforms at the same time as cutting spending at near-record levels to tame inflation.<\/p>\n

This masthead revealed last month<\/a> that Labor would bake into the budget a lower 5 per cent growth target for the NDIS. Since then, the government has welcomed a debate on structural changes such as means-testing the ballooning scheme or changing how it funds services, and registers providers. Government MPs say means-testing has been ruled out.<\/p>\n

As of late last year, 16 per cent of six-year-old boys in Australia, many of whom were diagnosed with developmental delays or autism, were on the NDIS.<\/p>\n

The pre-budget debate is occurring against the backdrop of a global inflation shock sparked by the war in the Middle East, and a pledge from Opposition Leader Angus Taylor<\/a> to fight tax hikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making every effort to ensure supply, but also to deal with … prices connected with supply as well,\u201d Albanese said, tying the success or failure of his trip to the stabilisation of fuel prices.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s paltry fuel stocks have exposed the nation\u2019s lack of self-sufficiency during the oil shock. Public anxiety about supply chain resilience, which was not acted on after the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed Labor to create a new \u201cresilience\u201d plank in the May budget. The opposition has put Labor on notice that any new reforms should not be a cover for subsidies for unviable blue-collar industries.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Anthony<\/a><\/p>\n

Albanese flagged more investment in fuel security but, importantly, he tied Chalmers\u2019 agenda on intergenerational equity to the broader resilience program.<\/p>\n

Another area of reform in the government\u2019s sights is tax breaks for property investors. This masthead reported two weeks ago<\/a> that Albanese had all but decided to proceed with tax reforms, which could include overhauling negative gearing and the capital gains discounts, after colleagues worried he would use the war as an excuse to go slow.<\/p>\n

He also raised the prospect of boosting spending on incentives for state governments to achieve Labor\u2019s 1.2 million house-building target.<\/p>\n

\u201cResilience is also about economic resilience and social cohesion and making sure that young Australians understand they have a stake in the economy,\u201d Albanese said. \u201cAnd housing is obviously one of the focuses of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Answering a question on scrapping tax breaks that tilt the balance against first home buyers, Albanese confirmed his government was mulling policy changes beyond housing supply, as he opened a new political battleground to fight a One Nation party surging in the polls off the back of economic and cultural disenchantment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system needs to work for people. You don\u2019t change that by rhetoric and by dividing people, which is, what is some of the populist rhetoric,\u201d he said. \u201cYou do that by giving people a stake in the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chalmers expressed similar sentiments at a pub event in his working-class hometown of Logan, in Brisbane, warning of the \u201cdangerous\u201d economic situation and its ability to make politics more caustic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes it a decisive moment for Australia, a pivotal moment where we have to decide together whether we go down the path we\u2019ve seen in other countries; more polarising politics, more divided societies and hollowed-out economies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake One Nation. At every turn and in almost every vote when they\u2019ve had the choice between voting how communities like ours need them to or voting the way Gina Reinhart tells them to, they make the wrong choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking on the ABC on Sunday, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King hinted that households could receive additional support in the federal budget because of persistently high fuel prices, and that generous tax breaks for leasing an electric vehicle could be retained to encourage the uptake of EVs.<\/p>\n

Sales of electric vehicles have surged in Australia since the US-Israeli war on Iran triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a massive spike in petrol and diesel prices at service stations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously got the tax cuts coming in on the first of July, but whether there\u2019s need for additional measures for household and businesses, you know, they\u2019re all things that we\u2019re contemplating as part of the budget process,\u201d she told the ABC\u2019s Insiders program.<\/p>\n

King repeatedly ducked questions about leasing tax arrangements, which waive fringe benefits tax, and which have cost the budget more than $500 million a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worked. It has seen uptake of electric vehicles. We, of course, do want to try and make sure there is more availability of cheaper electric vehicles for people, and that\u2019s what the fuel efficiency standard has done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Cookie<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll leave announcements around the fuel tax benefit for electric vehicles to discussions in the budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"PaulPaul Sakkal<\/a> is Chief Political Correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and won a Walkley award and the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.\"JamesJames Massola<\/a> is chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and South-East Asia correspondent. He has won Quill and Kennedy awards and been a Walkley finalist. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 12, 2026 \u2014 10:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-602200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}