EDITORIAL: Battle lines drawn as Canberra contest re-emerges

At the end of Budget week in Canberra something missing from Federal politics for some time has re-emerged. A contest.

A combination of factors has brought us to this point.

One was the thumping win the Albanese Government chalked up at the 2025 election against an anaemic Coalition.

In the wake of their trouncing the Liberals and Nationals then spent more time fighting each other in Opposition than in trying to hold Labor to account.

The fallout was plain. Conservative voters flocked to One Nation, which had tapped into growing agitation about issues such as the rate and make-up of immigration, the housing crisis — and they often linked the two — and cost of living.

The brewing storm burst in the Farrer by-election last weekend. One Nation was triumphant, proving the landscape had changed.

All the while the Albanese Government’s wealth-redistributing Labor DNA was rising to the surface as it worked up a way to reheat polices attacking negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions that former leader Bill Shorten had taken to the failed 2016 and 2019 campaigns.

Those electoral wipe-outs had sent Labor running from the two policies, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ruled them out multiple times during the successful 2025 campaign.

But perhaps because Labor knows it has a huge seat buffer, or maybe because it fell into the hubris hole, the clamps on negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions were revived and found their way into Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Budget on Tuesday.

The arrogance of the broken promise, which Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers just brushed aside saying things had changed, unleashed a backlash which must be unnerving Labor strategists.

The Opposition attack lines at the next election write themselves. Why would you trust anything the pair say?

Mr Albanese was then immediately challenged about other taxes such as a death tax — which drew a denial — before the emergence of a part of the Budget relating to wills and estates led to industry claims it was actually a death tax.

As the hits continued, new Liberal leader Angus Taylor’s reply to the Budget carved out new space for the Opposition.

This not only put some distance between the Liberals and Labor, it also took on One Nation, as Mr Taylor announced mass migration would come to an end and a government he led would cap immigration numbers based on the numbers of homes built each year.

In addition, income tax would be indexed to inflation, welfare payments would be restricted to Australian citizens and net zero carbon policies dumped.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson accused Mr Taylor of copying her ideas.

However this plays out in the long term, it is clear that for now we have a rampant One Nation, a re-energised Coalition and a Labor Party which must now know it finally has a fight on its hands.

And a contest of ideas is a positive step.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.