{"id":670290,"date":"2026-05-14T11:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670290\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:40:09","slug":"australia-news-as-it-happened-angus-taylor-delivers-budget-reply-speech-independent-senator-tammy-tyrrell-joins-labor-repatriation-flight-secured-for-australian-hantavirus-passengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670290\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia news as it happened: Angus Taylor delivers budget reply speech; Independent senator Tammy Tyrrell joins Labor; Repatriation flight secured for Australian hantavirus passengers"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>All of a sudden, federal parliament has turned into a big betting parlour.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Albanese\u2019s call to scrap investor tax breaks on Tuesday set off one of the riskiest contests of his prime ministership after years of being labelled timid.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bb6b3187cfe5819c5e13c51d5e71022c93505a85.webp\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n<p>Two days on, Angus Taylor has put up big and contentious ideas on tax and migration.<\/p>\n<p>Albanese believes his high-taxing, equality-focused budget will inject new energy into his mid-term agenda to avoid drifting as he did in his first term. For Taylor, the tax fight has reminded a confused and downbeat Coalition of its values on lower tax and aspiration.<\/p>\n<p>On tax, Taylor wants to index tax brackets. Peter Dutton shied away from the proposal last term because it was difficult to afford and may not be easily understood by voters. He\u2019ll use the tax plan to show One Nation voters to remind them of the Coalition\u2019s old strength on economic management.<\/p>\n<p>Growth-minded economists, as well as Labor luminary Bill Kelty, support indexation. They argue it would finally take pressure off wage earners after years of flat living standards.<\/p>\n<p>However, Taylor\u2019s decision to repeal Labor\u2019s $100 billion tax hike should he win the next election exposes him to a scare campaign about leaving a budget black hole.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor said he would cut social security benefits for permanent residents who are not yet citizens. The policy was styled on those of some European nations, some run by left-wing parties, trying to clamp down on migration.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Coalition colleagues applaud Opposition Leader Angus Taylor as he concludes his speech.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/aa93a14bd2f789cc3ed6e343b0a6024f58d38410.webp\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Coalition colleagues applaud Opposition Leader Angus Taylor as he concludes his speech.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n<p>As a Labor MP pointed out during Taylor\u2019s speech, there are already long wait lists for permanent residents to become citizens. And denying benefits may push people into poverty.<\/p>\n<p>Shadow ministers were largely left in the dark about Taylor\u2019s policies, the breadth of which reflect the urgency of his effort to revive his struggling outfit.<\/p>\n<p>The uncompromising migration plan is driven in significant part by countering Pauline Hanson.<\/p>\n<p>One Nation\u2019s Barnaby Joyce said after Taylor\u2019s speech that it was \u201cgame on\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[He should] acknowledge One Nation\u2019s policies past, present and emerging,\u201d Joyce said on ABC\u2019s 7.30 report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All of a sudden, federal parliament has turned into a big betting parlour. Anthony Albanese\u2019s call to scrap&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-670290","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\/670290","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=670290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}