The below is attributable to ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie:
Coalition policies announced in its Budget reply would strip vital support from people doing it tough, threaten essential services that people rely on and drive further inequality. These proposals would exacerbate the housing and climate crises and divide our communities.
A Cruel and Misleading Attack on Social Security
The Coalition is once again treating people on low incomes as a political punching bag, spreading fear, stoking division, and promoting false, racist, divisive stereotypes. Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes told politicians to abandon for good the narrative of taxpayer versus welfare recipient. The Coalition, and all parties, must heed those words.
The proposal to ban non-citizens from welfare is built on a false and misleading premise that migrants have equal access. They do not.
Permanent residents are already subject to lengthy waiting periods of four years for key payments like JobSeeker, Parenting Payment, and Youth Allowance, and ten years for the Age Pension and Disability Support Pension. These waiting periods already cause acute financial stress for people who fall on hard times.
Meanwhile, people seeking asylum are often already cruelly denied work rights and left destitute with no access to income support at all.
The tragic death of Bikram Lama in the centre of Australia's largest city is a devastating reminder of what happens when people are denied essential support.
Under the Coalition's proposal, more people would suffer, including children born and raised here whose parents are permanent residents and people who have spent years building a life in Australia.
Half of Australia's community is either born overseas, or has at least one parent who is a migrant, many still in a queue to secure citizenship.
All the evidence shows that people in Australia want to live in a country that shows compassion and supports people during tough times.
ACOSS stands today in solidarity with people who are migrants, refugees or asylum seekers who are being targeted by these policies and divisive rhetoric.
Our diverse, multicultural and migrant communities are one of our greatest strengths. We need to strengthen the support for people newly arrived, so that everyone can get a great start and live with dignity in this country.
Tax Bracket Indexation Would Blow the Budget
ACOSS strongly opposes the move to index income tax brackets to the Consumer Price Index without revenue-raising measures to offset the impact.
ACOSS analysis in 2025 showed that indexing all personal income tax thresholds would cost governments $38 billion a year by 2030-31, comparable to the entire projected spend on Medicare, and double the spend on unemployment payments.
A hit to the Federal Budget this large would threaten the essential services upon which people rely.
It would also drive greater economic and gender inequality.
Indexing all tax brackets would overwhelmingly benefit the highest income earners, the majority of whom are wealthy men. 60 per cent of the tax cuts would go to men.
Critically, 30 per cent of households – those on the lowest incomes who need help the most – would receive nothing at all.
At a time when people are skipping meals, delaying medical care and rationing energy, this is not where Australia's finite budget resources should go.
Tax-bracket indexation would be a multi-billion dollar benefit to wage earners that delivers nothing to the four million people who are out of paid work and struggling the most.
Repealing Negative Gearing and CGT Reforms Would Lock out Renters
ACOSS strongly opposes the Coalition's plan to repeal Labor's proposed reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax. These reforms are critically needed and long overdue.
The Federal Government currently spends more on housing investor tax breaks, $12.3 billion in 2025, than on social housing, homelessness services and rent assistance combined.
Since the capital gains tax discount was introduced in 1999, the median home price has doubled from around four to eight times the median income.
Property investors are now buying almost twice as many homes as first home buyers, locking renters out of the market.
Housing tax breaks give property investors an unfair advantage over people who just want to find somewhere to call home. Repealing these reforms would be a green light for more speculative investment, higher prices, and deeper housing stress for people on low and modest incomes.
Repealing the property investor tax breaks and reforms to discretionary trusts would damage housing affordability and again super charge wealth inequality, further dividing our communities into the haves and have nots.
Capping migration to new housing supply further fuels divisive nasty stereotypes, wrongly blaming migrants for the housing crisis and further dividing us.
Migration is not the cause of our housing crisis. During the Covid-19 pandemic immigration was at record lows yet home prices rose 20 per cent, proving that migration is not the primary driver of housing price pressures.
Over the last decade, our population has grown by 16%, less than the overall growth in housing (19%), yet housing affordability has plummeted over the same time.
Abolishing housing funding will damage housing supply
While additional funding for infrastructure is important, the Coalition's plan to abolish the Housing Australia Future Fund, as well as the Help to Buy, Build to Rent and New Homes Bonus initiatives are severely counterproductive and will damage investor confidence to build new supply.
The HAFF is a vital nation-building fund that is already delivering, supporting social and affordable housing, with dedicated commitments to First Nations communities. Scrapping it would be an act of serious and lasting damage to Australia's housing supply.
The Climate Crisis is real. Renewables are our affordable energy future
ACOSS supports ambitious carbon emissions targets to tackle the climate crisis.
We oppose proposals to abandon net zero and redirect investment away from renewables and toward new coal, gas and oil production.
Australia is already the world's second largest gas exporter. We have sufficient gas to meet our domestic needs as we transition to a clean energy economy. What we do not have is a fair return from the resources we export, which is why ACOSS is calling for a 25 per cent levy on gas export revenue that could raise up to $17 billion a year.
Expanding fossil fuel production will not lower energy bills for households, it will lock in climate damage and entrench dependence on volatile global markets. A gas export levy, by contrast, would reduce domestic wholesale electricity prices by up to 15 per cent.
We do not need more gas and oil. We need a fairer return from the gas we already export, and sustained investment in renewables and energy upgrades for the households that need them most. Doubling down on fossil fuels is the wrong direction for our energy security, our climate and our communities.
