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Federal budget 2026 live updates: treasurer Jim Chalmers to present budget speech tonight – latest news

Jim Chalmers , the federal treasurer, said the war in the Middle East has been a “big influence” on the budget, saying the crisis and its impact on fuel prices had made the inflation challenge much worse and put pressure on economic growth. Chalmers told RN Breakfast: double quotation mark We’ve made sure that our policy decisions are making a positive contribution to the budget rather than detracting from the budget position. And we’re showing spending restraint as well. And so, what that means is the budget tonight will be stronger than it was in December … It will be focused on resilience and reform. The treasurer went on to say that the housing market “isn’t working” and that the tax system surrounding it is “out of whack”: double quotation mark There will be efforts to rebalance the tax system so that we can better align the treatment of income from people who work with the people who earn their income in other ways. … The fairer the tax system is and the stronger the tax system is too. Overwhelmingly, the tax system and the housing market is not working, particularly for younger Australians. There is an urgency now to fixing this.