Budget deficits for years; Bondi charges laid; Tesla hits record

Budget deficits for years; Bondi charges laid; Tesla hits record

News in brief

The first funerals for Bondi Beach massacre victims were held yesterday, on an emotional day in which former treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should accept personal responsibility for the killings and called for a royal commission into antisemitism.

 

The younger suspected shooter Naveed Akram awoke from a coma and was hit with 59 charges including 15 counts of murder and one count to commit a terrorist act. 

 

Treasury Wine Estates will start a cost reduction program and rein in its growth in China and the United States, two of its biggest markets, after a sharper-than-expected slowdown in global wine demand.

 

The competition regulator is suing home meal delivery company Hello Fresh in Federal Court for allegedly misleading more than 100,000 consumers over subscriptions.

 

Tesla’s share price hit a record yesterday, surpassing its prior all-time high, valuing the company at $US1.54 trillion. Shares jumped after CEO Elon Musk said Tesla has been testing driverless vehicles in Texas with no occupants on board.

Fear-o-meter

The budget bottom line might look better in yesterday’s MYEFO, but it isn’t as good as it should be.

 

Key export prices have held up – think iron ore and battery minerals – while gold prices have soared. The labour market is stronger boosting income tax, the economy is solid helping company tax, and there’s also more money from capital gains tax, given the surge on the share market.

But spending is also higher on copper smelters and steelworks, alongside CSIRO, non-government schools and support for carers.

 

The net effect is a lower deficit, which is welcome. But there’s not much fundamental structural reform that will help in the longer term. The deficit is forecast to stay at a very high 27 per cent of GDP for the rest of this decade.

 

What is frustrating about this government’s fiscal management is that it has gotten lucky, with lower welfare payments and higher receipts, yet it has done little to right the fiscal ship. At some point the luck will run out, and the ship will start to tilt.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

Answering a question from listener Peter: Who measures emissions, how are they measured, is the number audited, checked off on, and by who?

 

"Scope 1 emissions are the emissions directly coming out of the back of your car if you’re driving an internal combustion engine and burning fossil fuel. Scope 2 emissions are the emissions associated with generating electricity somewhere else that you then use in your car or your home. And scope 3 emissions are emissions attributable to the manufacture of that car in another country, for example.

 

In Australia, we measure Scope 1 and 2 emissions under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme. You first choose which method you’re going to use. Method one is the simplest — you apply a default emissions factor for a kilolitre of diesel used, coal burnt or gas burnt. That’s the way most companies estimate emissions. As you move up to methods two, three and four, accuracy increases but so does the administrative burden."

The federal government has forecast higher inflation and slower economic growth in its mid-year budget update, but has also lowered future deficit forecasts. That reflects higher taxes on income, companies and superannuation accounts plus some longer-term spending restraint. The 2025-26 mid-year budget update shows this year’s deficit will be $5.3 billion lower than expected when the budget was originally released in March, at $36.8 billion. Over the next three years, Treasury is forecasting cumulative deficits of $143.3 billion compared to the $151.9 billion predicted before the election. The reduction in deficits reflects high tax collections. However, the government has downgraded the tobacco excise take by 25 per cent. This year alone, tobacco excise is expected to collect $5.5 billion – the smallest tax take on cigarettes in 20 years.

Greed-o-meter

City	Profit- making sales %	Median profit $	Median loss $
Sydney	92.5	399k	–45k
Melbourne	90.7	299k	–43k
Brisbane	99.8	444k	–35k
Adelaide	99.3	408k	–80k
Perth	98.2	355k	–74k
Hobart	94.3	315k	–30k
Darwin	82.8	126k	–50k
Canberra	93.5	306k	–30k

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Australian residential property sellers had their highest rate of profitability in over two decades during the September 2025 quarter, according to Cotality's latest Pain & Gain report. The analysis shows that 95.5% of sellers made a nominal profit, up from 94.9% in the June quarter, marking the strongest result since July 2005.

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Source: Cotality