In which the pond covers a few key reptiles - "Ned", Lloydie of the Amazon, and Dame Groan - covering the budget... (boring)

 

Despite the best efforts of the ABC, the scurrilous Seven network (see Media Watch), the Nine rags, and the climate science denying, anti-renewables reptiles of Oz, the pond is getting an EV to help with the transition to living down south.

This might sound like a knee-jerk response - after all, Trump’s Iran mess festers, and the world economy slouches toward crisis

But the pond has been to this rodeo before, what with this the third EV in the pond household. 

Once you've tasted this reptile-forbidden fruit, it's hard to get back on the ICE, gas-guzzling addiction.

If the pond hadn't been making the move south, likely it would have settled for public transit.

As it is, being deeply conservative, the moment the pond saw a YouTube video asking "is this car too sensible?", the pond was hooked.

Actually the EV in question isn't in any way a leader. Slowish to charge, and with the "extended range" version risibly modest, the Geely EX5 is only a middling middle-class vehicle (unless you count the luxury of seats with a massage function).

With the Geely of Chinese origin, the pond is aware that Chairman Xi will use the pond's shopping data to invade and conquer Australia, but helping Uncle Leon and mad King Donald make Australia the 53rd state would have been more expensive (and they happen to be doing more to ruin the planet than Xi at the moment). 

And so to this day's tour of duty, and as anticipated the reptiles were in a state of high budgetary excitement and high dungeon ...

The pond had to cut the reptiles off at that point, and to be honest, the pond's eyes glazed over at the sight of that modest sampling, because the budget had very little of personal significance in it.

It was Brownie who was given given top billing, accompanied by an appalling uncredited (AI?) collage and an even more appalling lesser Leak cartoon making a play on "The Joy of Tax".

Luckily the intermittent archive was working, and even more joyfully the saved copy was stripped of the lesser Leak:

2026 federal budget: Full breakdown of every major announcement
Jim Chalmers has unveiled billions in net tax increases, with a hit on housing investments and trusts easily outweighing the cost of a new $5-a-week tax cut.

The pond also made only dishonourable mentions of two of the most boring reptiles in the lizard Oz hive mind:

Analysis
Jim Chalmers just became the highest taxing treasurer of all time
New tax changes on capital gains, negative gearing and trusts will raise more than $100bn over the next 10 years.
By Matthew Cranston

That canny Cranston outing began with the heavily recycled lesser Leak, so the pond wasn't being a tease by cutting it off. 

Anyone who wants to assault their eyeballs can do it in the privacy of the archive.

The completely tedious Geoff chambered one of his seemingly endless rounds.

Let off the leash, battler Jim finally shows his true colours
Chalmers has grasped the big tax stick and fulfilled his dream of becoming a Labor treasurer who wages class warfare in the 21st century.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor

The old "class warfare" angle eh Geoff? 

"True colours"? 

Karl Marx meets Cyndi Lauper?

What an inspired reptile you are, and no doubt an inspiration to the hive mind. The pond guesses someone has do it, and when it doubt, break glass and pluck out some reptile with a limited imagination.

When the pond wants to be bored by the reptiles, it will always turn to a master of the art, "Ned" in full blown natter mode ...

The header: Survival of the fittest: how the 2026 budget rewires Australia’s housing market; The Albanese government risks everything on property tax reforms that could trigger a generational political war over Australia’s housing market.

The caption for the boring snap showing houses with black roofs, undoubtedly the best way to prepare for global warming: Labor’s surgery on negative gearing seeks a generational bonus for the government with younger voters.

Surprisingly "Ned" could only manage four minutes boring socks off feet, perhaps because there wasn't enough time available for him to borrow the thoughts of others and recycle them.

What he managed on his own was direly predictable:

This budget is a political and economic reset for the Albanese government.
Its forecasts are optimistic, it imposes tax increases on assets, it enshrines a reformed NDIS as the linchpin of its fiscal future and, above all, it seeks to keep Labor on the offensive as the status quo falls apart.
It is a budget of rival worlds.
Jim Chalmers calls it Labor’s most important, ambitious and responsible budget – but for the nation these economic reforms don’t reach deep enough to recharge productivity, puncture a decade of deficits, and deliver serious personal income tax reform.
But it virtually guarantees a political war over tax.
Labor’s surgery on negative gearing for property and replacement of the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount to “restore the taxation of real gains” is an audacious strike at a weakened Coalition, and seeks a generational bonus for the government with younger voters.
At the same time, Labor’s working tax offset – an annual $250 income boost from 2027-28 onwards for 13 million workers – creates a political test for the Coalition.
Do the Liberals support or oppose it, given their pre-election tax rejection blunder last year? In truth, they should exceed it.
Taylor’s challenge

Oh hang on, that sub-heading reminded the pond that it has the perfect 'toon for any talk of prime Angus beef's challenge ...

Nothing like a Hitchcock joke for those who can dimly remember the 1950s, as "Ned" tried to help the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way (watch out for the cornfield):

That means enabling Angus Taylor to outsmart Labor by pledging in his Thursday budget reply to index the personal income tax scale, a superior reform that would upstage Labor, reinvent Labor’s move, and market the Coalition with the type of bold tax reform it desperately needs.
Frankly, it is hard to see Taylor dodging this chance.

The pond was disappointed "Ned" didn't give "class warfare" a run, and instead settled for "political war", The stage is set for a political war on tax reform. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

"Ned" got into the weed and the numbers ...

A defining feature of the budget is the herculean transformation in the purpose of the NDIS. It is projected to reduce scheme payments by $184.9bn in the years to 2036-37.
Once an icon of Labor social conscience, the NDIS now becomes the mainstay of Labor’s budget savings over the coming decade and its capacity to get the budget to surplus in 2035-36. 
The NDIS growth is estimated to average only 2 per cent over the forward estimates – a task verging on the improbable – before returning to 5 per cent from 2030-31. If the savings aren’t delivered, then fiscal policy doesn’t work.
The Treasurer is proud that in this budget, savings from spending restraint is almost three times savings from higher tax; again, that’s the NDIS story. 
Anthony Albanese and Chalmers have wilfully embarked on their negative gearing-CGT changes calculating they can overcome the broken promises legacy, judging that the public is more ready for reform than in 2019 when Bill Shorten ran these initiatives, and branding them as generational equity. 
That’s deceptive, of course, giving that gross debt in this budget breaks through the $1 trillion barrier – the ultimate generational inequity. The negative gearing-CGT reforms deliver only modest extra revenue across the forward estimates running at $3.630bn, which doesn’t compensate for the $250 working tax offset that costs the budget $6.380bn over the same period. But these assets tax increases generate a windfall over the decade. Indeed, the total tax changes improve the budget bottom line by $77bn out to 2036-37. At the heart of the fiscal policy lies a deception.

Inevitably there had to be a snap of the main villains,  Treasurer Jim Chalmers is congratulated by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese following the delivery of the 2026-27 budget. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Left to his own devices, "Ned" quickly ran out of steam:

While the cash balance is the government’s preferred budget measure, the gulf with the headline balance is now respectively $150bn versus $264bn across the forward estimates. The latter includes a large number of off-budget items that distort and exaggerate the government’s fiscal credentials.
The budget prioritises maintaining living standards in the teeth of the Iran war and energy crisis, with extra commitments on Medicare, hospitals, aged care and housing. It radiates confidence in the outlook forecasting inflation peaking around 5 per cent, the labour market staying buoyant with unemployment not exceeding 4.5 per cent, and the crisis shaving growth next year to 1.75 per cent before kicking back to 2.5 per cent, still below the long-run trend.
Treasury’s more severe scenario of the Middle East conflict assumes the oil price peaking at $US200 a barrel and delivering a quarter of negative growth, persistent economic weakness, inflation rising above 7 per cent, and unemployment scaling pre-pandemic levels of 5 per cent. But Chalmers is adamant: “We would still avoid a recession.”
While Chalmers projects real spending growth is limited to an annual average of only 1.5 per cent out to 2030, the overall bigger government under Labor remains the status quo. Government spending as a proportion of GDP is 26.8 per cent in 2026-27, far ahead of the long-run trend, and stays above 26 per cent across the forward estimates.
The budget cash balance sits at a 1 per cent of GDP deficit across the current four years but since mid-year the deficit across the forward estimates has been cut from $195bn to $150bn, a huge improvement dominated by a revenue surge, with economist Chris Richardson saying “war and inflation” delivered this boost to the government “on a platter”.
In short, it came via an economic gift, not by Labor decision-making. 
This is not a transformational budget for bottom-line fiscal policy. The budget will remain in deficit for the coming decade.
It concedes that productivity gains will emerge over a longer period. Living standards for most people will remain under pressure.
But the budget constitutes a significant repositioning for Labor.
It puts the government on to a new pathway. Albanese and Chalmers have shifted policy to retain the political initiative, reset tax priorities, pitched to a younger generation of voters, fused economic resilience and national security, and created conflict to better define their convictions. 
This is a second-term preparation for the next election.

It's an election platform? 

Oh well they've lost, because you'd have to scour the lizard Oz from top to bottom for a positive response, or even a kind word, and then you'd come up short.

Speaking of platforms, the pond was delighted to see that the infallible Pope had at last returned. The pond had been worried about him, but no doubt he needed the break, as we all do ...

The pond was startled and shocked to see Lloydie of the Amazon emerge from the jungle to ring the climate science denialist alarum bell, again with a wretched, uncredited (AI?) graphic at the top of the offering:

The header: Budget 2026: Capacity Investment Scheme the hidden green debt bomb; For taxpayers and energy users, this massive renewables scheme threatens a repeat of the NDIS.

The pond has almost forgotten Lloydie of the Amazon was a reptile thing, and this time the hapless lad could only manage a two minute outing to shout fear, rage and beermb ...

There is a potentially multi-billion-dollar green debt bomb hidden in the federal budget that for taxpayers and energy users could one day be a repeat performance of the NDIS.
While attention in the budget was focused on tinkering with current programs and limiting any reference to net zero, the sting in the tail is what might happen to the Capacity Investment Scheme that is designed to underwrite future large-scale renewable energy developments.
The CIS is listed in the budget papers as a contingent liability, alongside the Snowy 2.0 hydro electric scheme, which has already blown out in costs by billions.
According to the budget papers, “The Australian government’s maximum liability and estimated payments under these (CIS) agreements are not for publication due to commercial sensitivities”.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with an AV distraction, which began by offering an exquisite framing of a beard. 

Does Lloydie boast a toilet bowl beard? Who knows? Who cares? Graham Lloyd on the key energy changes the government plans to bring in with their 2026 Budget.

Lloydie carried on, giving "potentially" and "potential" a massive hard ride, though to be fair "could" and "likely" were also given an outing ...

If what is happening overseas is any guide, the scheme could represent a massive potential liability for the commonwealth – the British equivalent has grown to £90bn on the national budget, with a cash cost of between £1bn and £2bn a year.
The eventual costs will likely dash the hopes of Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who this week said it would be unsustainable for the government to indefinitely continue “supercharged spending” on the net-zero transition.
Labor commits $12.3bn in new net zero spending
Her sentiments were not mirrored in the budget papers, which disclosed $12.3bn in new net zero spending commitments over the forward estimates and $18.2bn over the medium term.
The action is taking place off-balance sheet, however, where billions are being spent assisting climate-focused investments.
In his budget speech, Jim Chalmers said the Albanese government was “progressing the most significant reforms to the National Electricity Market since the 1990s as the world moves to net zero – including to attract more investment in renewable energy and increase competition”.
The CIS is designed to help deliver the government’s 82 per cent renewable electricity by 2030 target with an additional 40GW of capacity by 2030.
The Powering Australia plan
It complements other programs under the Powering Australia plan.
This includes rewiring the nation to build the network of high voltage transmission lines. The CIS is supposed to support about $73bn in investment in the electricity sector but things already are not going to plan.
Winning bidders in tenders so far are lobbying to renegotiate contracts that set a floor and ceiling price.
Under the terms of the underwriting agreements, once the projects are built and operational, if the actual revenue earned by a project is below the agreed revenue floor, the Australian government will pay the project operator 90 per cent of the revenue shortfall up to the agreed annual cap for 15 years.
If the annual revenue earned by a project exceeds the agreed ceiling, the project operator pays the Australian government 50 per cent of revenue above the ceiling up to the agreed cap.
Because CIS payments depend on uncertain future electricity prices and project revenues, the exposure is disclosed through fiscal risk statements rather than through a large, explicit budget provision.

And that, luckily was that. 

Let's hope Lloydie of the Amazon returns to the jungle like a Japanese soldier unaware the war has ended, so that we might hear from him potentially in a decade or so with his potently potential insights.

Another reptile deciding to end with a whimper rather than an intergenerational bang ...

And where would the pond be without the triumphant return of Dame Groan as the capper, boldly proclaiming "we'll all be rooned", as if referencing The Castle yet again was some sort of new insight she was peddling. (Can't someone show the old biddy Muriel's Wedding so she can go around saying "oh you are terrible Jimbo"?)

Again Dame Groan was launched into the world with that hideous recycled and uncredited (AI?) graphic suggesting that the lizard Oz's budget was in as much trouble as the country. 

Poor Dame Groan, forced to make out with Brownie's graphic, like Dolly made to wear rags and patches:

The header: Fifth time lucky for Jim? Tell him he’s dreaming; It’s almost comedic the lengths to which Jim Chalmers is prepared to go to ensure no blame is attributed to his actions.

Amazingly the old chook could only lather up a three minute groaning about dire Jimbo:

The second week of May is ­traditionally a time of great excitement for a federal treasurer. It’s the culmination of many meetings, decisions made and marketing plans mapped out.
Most of the budget details are strategically leaked, although some are held back so some interest lingers when the treasurer does rise in the house to deliver the budget speech.
Notwithstanding all this hard work, including for the Treasury bureaucrats putting in long hours, most budgets are quickly forgotten.
All that flowery rhetoric about the outstanding job the government is doing to manage the budget and oversee an improving economy simply falls on many, many deaf ears.
There have been exceptions. When Wayne Swan got up to announce four budget surpluses in 2012, we all got a good laugh.
Mind you, most of us can’t remember anything else about that budget.
The 2014 budget was a bit of clanger when Joe Hockey proposed a series of cost-cutting measures that hadn’t been previously mentioned and ultimately never passed parliament except for the income tax surcharge. (There is an important message here: the changes announced in budgets almost always require legislation, which does not always eventuate.)

Inevitably there was a snap of Dame Groan's foe: Treasurer Jim Chalmers takes questions from the media on arrival to Australian Parliament House ahead of handing down the 2026 budget on Tuesday night. Picture: Getty Images

The pond means no disrespect, but the old biddy could do with something a little less terrifying than that ominous ogre, who always sets her off ...

As she has done many times before, Dame Groan was determined to downplay the dire straits the world has been plunged into by mad King Donald.

(And who knows where the tariff wars will be after the mad King's visit to China?)

Dame Groan was determined not to let Jimbo wriggle off her hook, or escape her baleful ancient mariner eye:

This is the fifth budget Jim Chalmers has handed down. It carries on the theme that ­whatever has gone wrong with the economy or the hardship that ordinary folk have been feeling has nothing to do with his government.
Indeed, there is a whole box in the budget papers on the drivers of the recent increase in inflation but no mention of the role of excessive government spending.
It’s all about the war
It’s almost comedic the lengths to which Chalmers is prepared to go to ensure no blame is attributed to his actions.
Now it’s all about the Iran war, but it was the war in Ukraine before that.
The reality is these wars have made a net revenue contribution to the budget through the impact of higher commodity prices.
Talking of comedy, some of the tables in the budget papers look particularly weird. This fin­ancial year, the CPI is expected to increase by 5 per cent, but next fin­ancial year (and across the forward estimates), annual inflation miraculously returns to 2½ per cent. How good is that?
Obviously, Jim knows something about what is going to happen in the Strait of Hormuz that no one else does.

The caption for the next meaningless snap was a little Sir Echo of Dame Slap's line ... Does Jim Chalmers know something we don’t about the Strait of Hormuz? Picture: AFP/US Navy

None of this sort of nonsense please ...

With the notion that Australia had anything to do with the rest of the world and its fortunes banished from the old biddy's mind, she could sail on in her denunciation of Jimbo, and the pond could do a Donald and nod off (eyes closed means the pond is just blinking):

We’re also told not to worry about the decline in real wages this financial year because there will be (assumed) real wage growth in the out years.
Marginal reductions in underlying cash deficits forecast in the budget compared with the 2025 MYEFO are hard to take seriously. A difference of $3bn when the government is spending $830bn carries no bragging rights.
Chalmers is also deliberately misleading when he talks about savings and the budget being in better nick. He was very keen on the figure of $114bn as the savings and reprioritisations going into this year’s budget. The problem with this figure is that it’s a gross figure, not net.
Only the bottom-line matters, not the creative accounting he applies to arrive at a politically appealing figure. By 2029-30, gross government debt is expected to be $1.193 trillion or 35.6 per cent of GDP. This is up from $982bn next financial year, or 33.1 per cent of GDP.
Net interest payments go from $19.9bn to $31.7bn – a massive increase of 60 per cent.
This year’s budget adds another $64bn to these gross savings and reprioritisations.

Imagine the pond's disappointment that Dame Groan didn't reach for low hanging fruit, one of her stock in trade items ...

Instead she just resorted to a billy goat butt of uncertainty and assumptions ...

But here’s the thing: these savings are dominated by assumptions that apply to the immense scaling back in the NDIS. It’s worth quoting from the budget papers here. “Nominal growth in the NDIS is projected to decline from over 10 per cent in 2024–25 to an average of around 2 per cent between 2025–26 and 2029–30.
“As a share of GDP, NDIS ­expenditure is expected to decline from 1.7 per cent in 2025–26 to 1.6 per cent in 2028–29 and 1.5 per cent in 2029–30. Without the government’s recent changes, NDIS expenditure as a share of GDP would have been projected to exceed 2 per cent by 2029–30.”
Let’s be clear: there has never been a program that had been growing at more than 10 per cent being scaled back so drastically, so quickly. It beggars belief that the government will not face fierce blowback from affected groups, particularly as the useful reform of attaching co-payment to the scheme has been ruled out.
At least, the budget papers clarify the overall net saving figure. “Over the five years to 2029–30, net policy decisions improve the budget by $26.1bn, when accounting for previously made provisions.” That’s $5bn a year, close to a rounding error.

That's it? Wouldn't it have been simpler and quicker to just scribble "we'll all be rooned", and not finish with a whimper rather than a bang with talk of a "rounding error"?

The pond is certain that the budget will echo through the hive mind for days to come, but speaking of "butts", there is possibly a bigger game afoot than the reptiles v. Jimbo ...

And on the upside, it could be a whole lot worse, as Little England sinks into a mire and a deep funk: