JIM CHALMERS:
This is a Budget about near‑term pressures and long‑term priorities. It’s a responsible Budget which eases cost of living, fights inflation and makes really important investments in the future of our economy. It is equal parts relief, restraint and reform; cost‑of‑living relief and spending restraint, which is expected to deliver a second surplus, and also reform and renewal to make sure that we’re getting our industrial base right to create good, secure, well‑paid jobs into the future.
Now, our economy to here has performed well despite difficult circumstances. If you look at the chart that is up there now, what that shows you is just how substantially inflation has moderated in our economy. When we came to office, inflation had a 6 in front of it. It now has a 3 in front of it. You can see the substantial progress that’s been made on inflation, but it’s not mission accomplished because people are still hurting. That’s why cost‑of‑living and fighting inflation is really the primary objective of this Budget that we’re handing down today. In addition to moderating inflation at the same time as inflation has been moderating substantially, we’ve had record jobs growth for a first‑term government – 780,000 jobs have been created. We’ve got real wages growth for the first time in years, we’ve got the lowest gender pay gap on record, and we’ve had expanding business investment as well. We’ve been able to do that at the same time as inflation is coming off quite substantially, as you see in that chart before you.
At the same time as we’ve got a lot going for us in our economy, we’ve also got a lot coming at us. Global economic uncertainty, moderating but high inflation, and higher interest rates are all combining and contributing to the sluggish economic growth that you see in the forecasts, in the Budget papers. A slower economy obviously means a softer labour market, and you can see that in the forecast.
All of this has implications for the Budget position too. A softening labour market and lower bulk commodity prices, particularly in the first quarter of this year, has led to much smaller revenue upgrades; revenue upgrades in this Budget are around a fifth of the last 3 budgets. Although the revenue upgrade is much smaller, the composition of that upgrade is very interesting. The overwhelming majority of the revenue upgrade on this occasion is the labour market rather than commodity prices. Commodity prices and the resources sector makes a welcome contribution to our Budget. On this occasion, the big driver of the smaller revenue upgrade in the Budget is the labour market.
Despite these softer conditions, we do expect to deliver a second consecutive surplus. This would be the first time we’ve seen back‑to‑back surpluses in almost 2 decades and we have dramatically improved the Budget position since we came to office. What you see in that second chart is a comparison of last year and this year when it comes to the really quite stunning turnaround in the Budget. The grey bars are what was expected in the pre‑election fiscal outlook, essentially the deficits that our predecessors left us with. What you see in the 2 blue bars is the surplus delivered last year and the surplus expected this year, and that illustrates what a stunning turnaround we have seen in the Budget from 2 big deficits to now expecting 2 surpluses.
Obviously, a surplus isn’t an end in and of itself. It is a demonstration of our responsible economic management. It is also how we ensure that we’re making room to fund our priorities in this Budget; overwhelmingly cost‑of‑living relief and a future made in Australia, but also some of the other really important investments and reforms that we are funding. You know by now because you’ve read the papers that there are really 5 major packages when it comes to policy in the Budget.
The first one, and most important in the near term is the cost‑of‑living relief. That’s a tax cut for every taxpayer, plus another $7.8 billion in cost‑of‑living relief, a tax cut for every taxpayer, energy bill relief for every household, and additional cost‑of‑living help on top of that as well when it comes to rent, cheaper medicines and in other ways as well.
The second big package in the Budget is more homes for Australians, another $6.2 billion over the medium term in new investments to help us achieve our ambitious target of 1.2 million homes in the 5 years from July this year. That takes our total investment in housing to $32 billion over the course of this government, a really substantial investment in more homes for Australians. We understand how important that is when it comes to cost of living, but also when it comes to the future of our communities as well.
The third big package is our plan for a Future Made in Australia, $22.7 billion of investment over the decade to help us grasp a new generation of jobs and prosperity and to make us an indispensable part of the global transformation to net zero. This is an absolutely crucial set of investments that we are proposing here. Of that $22.7 billion of investment, most of it is production tax incentives. We’re relying very heavily on the tax system to make sure that we are incentivising the private investment that we need in a Future Made in Australia and to become a renewable energy superpower and not just public investment on its own. I’ll come back to a Future Made in Australia in a moment.
The fourth big package is universities reform and skills. You’ll see a total of investment of $1.6 billion there, $1.1 for the University Accord response and about half a billion dollars for skills, prioritising areas like clean energy, construction and manufacturing.
And the fifth big package is strengthening Medicare and the care economy. More than $3 billion in PBS listings, almost $3 billion to strengthen Medicare, including the urgent care clinics. More than $2 billion invested in aged care and also some provisions for imminent decisions from the Fair Work Commission on wages in the care economy. We’ve tried to make a responsible provision for that as well, and that’s really important.
All of this is underpinned by responsible economic management – a second surplus of $9.3 billion, returning 82 per cent of revenue upgrades over the life of our government, 96 per cent this year, $77.4 billion in savings and reprioritisations that Katy might want to come back to. Limiting real spending as well, to a fraction of the real spending growth that we saw under our predecessors as well.
I wanted to touch briefly on the reforms in this Budget for the tax system. Really, they are in 3 categories. The cost‑of‑living tax cuts that you are familiar with that we recast in January to give a tax cut to every one of the 13.6 million Australian taxpayers – average tax cut of $36 a week, a bigger tax cut for 84 per cent of taxpayers, a much better way to return bracket creep and boost to labour supply. That’s the first category.
The second category measures to support investment, including extending the instant asset write off for small business. We’ve got the hydrogen production tax incentive and the critical minerals tax incentives as part of the Future Made in Australia and we’re also abolishing almost 500 nuisance tariffs to get compliance costs down for business.
The last category is around a fairer tax system; whether it’s the foreign resident capital gains tax changes, a new penalty for multinationals attempting to avoid Australian royalty withholding tax, and some extensions to the tax compliance measures. The net improvement to the bottom line of our tax changes is $3.1 billion but about half of that is given back in the form of personal income tax, the extra cost of that, in addition to the small business measures and the tariff reforms as well.
What all of this means, and we’ll come to the third chart now – all of this combined means that we are getting gross debt down really substantially in our Budget. It’s now expected to peak at 35.2 per cent of GDP – that’s almost 10 percentage points lower of GDP, lower than what we inherited and you can see the line at the top is the inheritance. When it comes to gross debt, you can see the 2 lines close together. The top line is the MYEFO and the bottom line is this Budget.
You can see that even with all of this investment, even with all of these constraints, we are still making progress in getting our gross debt down compared to what we inherited only 2 years ago. Our fiscal position is about $215 billion better than we inherited and a combination of all that means we’ll avoid about $80 billion in debt repayments over the course of the decade. Now, when it comes to our cost‑of‑living policies, there’s been a lot of interest in that today as we walk around the bureaus, you know by now that our cost‑of‑living policies are expected to take half a percentage point off inflation next year – that’s why Treasury is now forecasting inflation could return to the target band by the end of this year, earlier than it was anticipated in MYEFO. Obviously, there are a lot of uncertainties around the outlook, but that is the Treasury forecast. When you think about that in the context of the broader inflation challenge, inflation has come off from its big peaks in 2022 and you see the progress we’ve made on debt and deficits as well.
I just wanted to touch on the major components of the investments for a Future Made in Australia. This is such an important major part of this third Budget of the Albanese Government. It really has 5 key components.
The first one is how do we attract and enable investment? That’s the national interest framework, the new single front door for investors, the FIRB reforms, the Sustainable Finance Strategy and the new national interest account. The second piece is making our country a renewable energy superpower. That’s the production tax incentive for renewable hydrogen, the new round of Hydrogen Headstart and the Innovation Fund. Thirdly; value adding to our resources and increasing our economic security. You’ve got the tax incentive for the refining and processing of critical minerals and some of our other investments. Fourthly, how we back Australian ideas and research and innovation and science. And then lastly, how we invest in our people and our places. So, the skills agenda, but also making sure that the regions get a slice of the action in a Future Made in Australia.
The reason I finished on this is because this Budget has a really ambitious growth agenda for the future, and that is the key part of it, but it’s not the only part of it. If you think about our competition reforms, what we’re doing in human capital, our investments in infrastructure and housing, defence industry capability, our support for small business – it’s all about making our economy more productive, more dynamic, more competitive, so that we can make our country and our people more prosperous into the future. We found a way to do that by balancing the priorities of the long term with the pressures that people are under in the here and now.
KATY GALLAGHER:
Budgets are about people, and this is a Budget that has the Australian people right at the centre. Whether it’s through our cost‑of‑living relief, with tax cuts, with helping Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn, power bill relief or making medicines cheaper, we’ve had a focus on the Australian people, and particularly with where Jim just finished, on the growth agenda about jobs and opportunities for the future.
We’ve done this without taking our eye off the need to manage the Budget responsibly. We’ve been looking to find savings from when we came to government, looking for departments to reprioritise when they can, by cleaning up some of these funding cliffs and terminating programs that we’ve inherited. The Budget includes about $15.4 billion across the forwards in unavoidable spending and that’s really to make sure that the services and programs that people rely on continue. When you look at what we’ve had to do since coming to government, that brings to a total about 36 and a half billion dollars in unavoidable, government spending, essentially, to continue programs that people rely on. We’ve had to find room for that.
The Budget continues to face those long‑term fiscal challenges from interest costs, the NDIS, Defence, health and aged care. In 2024 and 25, unavoidable spending is two‑thirds of the net spending in the Budget, and the remainder is the cost‑of‑living relief package. Just to give you a few examples: $2.8 billion to sustain MyGov and Services Australia staff and security, $2.6 billion worth of terminating programs in health and that includes the COVID‑19 response. $1.2 billion to build digital capability in the aged care system so that we can continue to roll out support there. Over 300 million in the national medical stockpile, investment in support for veterans, the fit out of Western Sydney. These are things that are really non‑discretionary. These are investments that we have to make.
Two hundred million for Antarctic shipping and Macquarie Island work, health and safety requirements and extra money going into Home Affairs after, you know, we’ve gone through that with a fine‑tooth comb to look at how we better support that Department to deliver on its core responsibilities.
We’ve found room for those in the spending on that side of the Budget. But at the same time, we’ve identified $27.9 billion in savings and reprioritisations to take the pressure off inflation and minimise the impact of new decisions on the bottom line. So, savings and reprioritisations are now $77.4 billion since we came to government, it’s not easy to find $77.4 billion in savings and reprioritisations so, I thank all the Ministers involved in that. It’s a lot of work that goes into that in this Budget. The big element of that is Defence reprioritisation within their IIP, and this is to better align it with the Defence Strategic Review and reprioritise from other existing projects. We’re going to take a bit more on the external labour savings, on use of consultants and contractors across the public service. There’s some savings in MBS Pathology, the childcare subsidy, some of the money that it was allocated to the National Water Grid. In fact, right across all departments, we’ve been able to find some programs, either the savings or rebadging or reusing money for a new priority.
I’ve got a couple of things on women and I’m happy to take questions on the women’s side of the Budget. This is our third Women’s Budget Statement. This is the first one that aligns to our Gender Equality Strategy. You should see this as continued progress on the list of things, each budget, we’ve been trying to gently, and sometimes not so gently, shift the dial on support for women and promoting a gender‑equal Australia, because we know that’s good for everyone, not just women. The Women’s Budget Statement takes you through some of those investments. Obviously, in this Budget, there’s a big focus on women’s safety and Amanda Rishworth and I are working closely on that. But we’ve also found room for other measures, like super on PPL, extra investment going into housing, our provisions that we’ve made for the care economy into wages. All of this should be seen not in isolation of each other; these are individual measures that tell a bigger story about how we’re trying to shift the dial and support women across the economy. We know that ultimately, if we can have women who are more economically independent, that should have a positive impact on women’s safety across the economy as well.
There is extra investment in jobs, in the public service, there is also an audit of employment. We’re going to do a second audit of employment to measure and track the progress we’re making on reducing our reliance on contractors, consultants and labour hire. There’s almost 9,000 conversions from labour hire into permanent public service roles and we can already see the difference that this is making. We inherited a public service that was not equipped to do its job properly, to deliver services to the community. We inherited Robodebt. We inherited a public service that wasn’t able to deliver services to the standard that Australians expect. We’re now seeing in Veterans’ Affairs cases allocated properly. We’ve seen the visa backlog diminish. You can get your passport on time. If you ring Services Australia, you won’t have as long to wait. This is all about making sure that the public service is able to do the job that it needs to do.
JOURNALIST:
Why does every household deserve $300 off their power bill? Some households could probably afford to pay it.
CHALMERS:
Well, what we’ve done in the cost‑of‑living package is we’ve struck a balance between broad cost‑of‑living help and targeted cost‑of‑living help. A tax cut for every taxpayer and energy bill relief for every household is part of the broad cost‑of‑living relief in the Budget. Then we have targeted measures for almost a million renters, for people who spend a lot at the pharmacy and in other ways as well. The reason we’ve gone broader this time for the energy bill rebates is because we recognise that these cost‑of‑living pressures are felt up and down the income scale, middle Australia is under pressure too. We have found a responsible way to provide that assistance more broadly when it comes to energy and the tax system, and in a more targeted way when it comes to the other assistance. We recognise that cost‑of‑living pressures are felt most harshly by people on low and fixed incomes and vulnerable people but the cost‑of‑living pressure doesn’t end there and that’s why we’ve also provided this help to people in middle Australia too.
JOURNALIST:
There’s a considerable amount of money squirrelled away in the contingency reserve. I think it rises to about $27 billion a year towards the end of the forwards. What proportion of that small, medium or large, or, if you want to be more specific, is being set aside for the wage cases on aged care and childcare?
CHALMERS:
We’ve had to make responsible contingencies for a whole range of imminent policy decisions and outcomes which are not ready to be fully costed yet. In the wages system we have a big commitment to making sure that workers in the care economy, predominantly women, are paid fairly for the important work that they do but there are a couple of processes underway that we don’t want to pre‑empt and so we make a responsible provision. Similarly, when it comes to a lot of the negotiations that are underway with the States and Territories, we’ve got a lot of work underway with our colleagues and counterparts in the States and Territories. The onus is on us to make, where we can, a responsible provision for that kind of spending as well. The combination of those 2 things does mean we’ve had to do a lot of provisioning. That’s just what responsible governments do.
JOURNALIST:
The Coalition is signalling that they want to fight on the Future Made in Australia and that they consider that avoidable spending. What are the safeguards that public funding will go to projects that are economically viable? And in the speech, you mentioned that the Future Made in Australia Act will have safeguards of the national interest. What will companies have to do or give back to communities in order to get those tax credits?
CHALMERS:
Everyone has an interest in ensuring that these substantial investments we’re making in the future of our economy to become a renewable energy superpower, to make our economy more resilient, to make sure it’s more productive and dynamic into the future. We’ve all got a responsibility to make sure that we get value for money. This is not some kind of free‑for‑all of public money. It’s a very rigorous, very robust framework which is designed to leverage private capital and private investment in the future of our economy that will be governed in part by the Future Made in Australia Act that the Prime Minister flagged, but also by the National Interest Framework.
We have circulated a very detailed paper from Treasury colleagues today, about 30 pages of detail, which explains the rigour and robustness that we intend to apply now. One of the reasons for the act, and you’ll see references to this in some of the material we’ve provided today, is we do want to make sure that where we are leveraging investment in regional communities and that those industries are creating secure, well‑paid jobs for our people. As Katy said more eloquently than I a moment ago; we have put people front and centre in this Budget. This Budget is about people. It’s about cost‑of‑living pressures now. It’s about secure, well‑paid jobs into the future. If we can leverage our investment and leverage private investment to ensure that the jobs that are created are good, secure, well‑paid jobs in communities right around Australia, then that’s one of the things that we will be able to do.
JOURNALIST:
Could you have done more in the fight against inflation? And why haven’t you?
CHALMERS:
Well, this Budget is primarily focused on the inflation fight in the here and now. That is the biggest challenge that we confront, particularly at the front‑end of the Budget. That’s why we’ve got a combination of spending restraint and savings and banking, almost all the upward revision to revenue this year. That’s why we’ve got a second surplus, not as an end in itself, but to help put downward pressure on inflation. That’s why we’ve designed our cost‑of‑living package the way that we have, because the inflation fight is the primary fight and we think we can engage meaningfully in the fight against inflation without smashing the economy. We need to be conscious as responsible economic managers that we can see inflation moderate further and faster without smashing people who are already under pressure and without smashing the economy, which is already soft. So, there are a series of fine balances here that we have struck. I’m confident that we have struck them well. There will always be people calling for a kind of a scorched earth approach to the Budget, but we’re not slashing and burning in the Budget. We’re helping people with the cost‑of‑living and we’re incentivising investment in the future.
JOURNALIST:
You’ve described the stage 3 tax cut redesign previously as broadly revenue neutral, although there’s a one‑off $1 billion saving to the Budget over the next financial year. But over the medium term, it’ll actually increase tax receipts by about $28 billion. How does that fit in with providing cost‑of‑living relief? And how much pressure do you think does that put on the government to offer further personal income tax relief ahead of the next election?
CHALMERS:
First of all, over the life of the forward estimates, the tax cut for every taxpayer costs an additional $1.3 billion. So, over the usual life of the Budget, we’re providing more tax relief, not less tax relief, but more fundamentally than that, we found a better way to do it, and that is to give a tax cut to every taxpayer, not just some. It’s to make sure that the people who are punished the most by bracket creep are receiving our attention, the people in middle Australia, people on low and middle incomes. So that’s the motivation for the recasting of the tax cuts at the start of the year, and they will flow to every taxpayer from July.
In terms of the medium‑term outlook, and we explained this in January as well. That assumes, I think unrealistically, that no government of either political persuasion will make any changes whatsoever to the tax system over the course of the next 10 years. I think the history of personal income tax reform has shown that it happens more regularly than that. We are returning bracket creep. We’re returning it to every single Australian taxpayer. That’s the major difference to the tax cuts that it replaces.
JOURNALIST:
Two questions, if I may. Firstly, on the, on the wellbeing framework, is that featured in this Budget at all? If not, where’s that up to? And on the Energy Bill Relief, economists are going to tell me later this evening, probably when I call them, if you give them that money, they’re just going to go, and if you take that off their bill, they’re going to go spend it elsewhere. How do you kind of justify that it brings down headline inflation?
CHALMERS:
On the first part of your question, Jen, there is some more money for the ABS to help with the wellbeing framework, but we have very deliberately, and we said at the time, decoupled the regular Budget from the wellbeing framework. You should expect to hear more from us later about the wellbeing framework. We want to engage the great people at the ABS to help make sure that we can fill some of those gaps, frankly, that were in the first iteration.
In terms of the opinions that people have about the inflation fight. The clear advice that we received was that the way that we’ve designed our cost‑of‑living package will put downward pressure on inflation. It will take about half a click off the CPI next year, and it won’t add to broader inflationary pressures in the economy. I know there’s a range of views about that, I acknowledge that, but I am confident that we are acting on the good advice that we are receiving. We’re not spraying around big cheques to people, we are putting downward pressure on 2 of the most important bills that they have – rent and electricity. In the course of that, that’s putting downward pressure on inflation and doing that in a way that’s not creating problems elsewhere in the economy.
JOURNALIST:
Treasurer in 25–26, there’s going to be a larger deficit. There’s the largest impact of policy decisions, there’s the largest provision for policies, decisions taken but not announced. What’s happening in 2025? Is it just there’s an election?
CHALMERS:
No and Katy went to this a bit before in her presentation. The reason why there are those net policy decisions next year is a combination of just 2 things – the unavoidable spending: continuing health programs and services that any objective, reasonable person would consider as ongoing spending, but our predecessors are neither objective nor reasonable, and so a lot of that spending was terminated. So, it’s a combination of that category and the cost‑of‑living help, which is putting downward pressure on inflation. We’re very confident that the composition of that spending next year is going to be helpful in the fight against inflation, rather than harmful in the fight against inflation.
I’d also remind you to take a slightly longer‑term view of what we’ve been able to do in the Budget – we are more than $200 billion in bottom lines better off than we inherited. We have made stunning progress in terms of repairing the Budget. That deficit next year is a little bit bigger than what it might have been in MYEFO. Of the 5 bottom lines that we’re reporting, 2 of them get better and 3 of them get a little bit worse, and that’s not unusual. We are confident that we’ve got the right composition and the right quality of spending next year and in all the years to come.
JOURNALIST:
Treasurer, how will the energy rebates work? Can you explain if it’s a recurring payment or a one‑off payment, and how will people be able to access it? Or will it be direct money in the bank or straight to the provider?
CHALMERS:
Thanks for the opportunity. Similar to the way it was provided last time, it was provided in a more targeted way last time, but with a similar mechanism. We rely on the states and we rely on the energy retailers to provide rebates or credits on the energy bills that people get. So, if you pay your energy bill quarterly, what you’ll see is a $75 credit over the 4 quarters of the next financial year. Other people might pay their bills in more frequent instalments and that will recognise that as well. But, spread out over the course of the next financial year, $300 for every household provided via people’s bills in a similar way to a more targeted cohort received this help in the last Budget.
JOURNALIST:
[INAUDIBLE] I mean, when are we going to see the NDIS on a more sustainable footing? [INAUDIBLE]
GALLAGHER:
Well, I think the answer to that’s in the Budget papers. So, we’ve put in place a target to cap at 8 per cent, basically over the longer term and then in this Budget, you’ll see that there’s a $14.4 billion price tag, or $14.6 might be on the legislation that’s before the Parliament. That is to moderate the growth of the scheme, so, the actuary has signed off on that. Without the legislation, you would have seen the NDIS continue to grow. The legislation that’s been measured by the actuary, the legislation and the elements in that, which is largely managing inter‑plan growth, is the big part of that that is offset by the legislation. We want the NDIS to be successful. We want people to get the right support. We want the system to work better for everybody, but it cannot keep growing at the way it is currently growing because it will squeeze out a whole range of other supports that people rely on eventually. So, this Budget is an important one for the NDIS. A lot of work going on about how the scheme operates and all the rest of it, but this, how we manage basically planned inflation, is a key to getting the NDIS back on track.
JOURNALIST:
Treasurer, you’ve flagged a total, I think it’s $6.2 billion on housing in this Budget. It seems like a big number.
CHALMERS:
It is a big number.
JOURNALIST:
Isn’t it the case, though, that the biggest roadblock in the way of getting these houses built is not at a federal level, but at a local government and a state level? In terms of the planning issues and that kind of thing?
CHALMERS:
It’s a big part of the story. We’ve got an ambitious but achievable target to build 1.2 million homes in the 5 years from July, and that will be difficult and it requires everyone to do their bit. We’ve come to the table with $32 billion worth of investment, including $6 billion new investment here and we’ve struck that new agreement last Friday, which is a credit to the Prime Minister and the Housing Minister. We had provisioned for some of that already, but not all of that already. So, huge new investments in housing from a Commonwealth point of view, that’s us doing our bit. I’m confident the states and territories and local governments are prepared to do their bit as well and one of the key parts of the investment that we are making is in the priority work stream, a billion dollars this year, which is about funding for headworks and the sorts of small‑scale infrastructure that makes it possible to plan and release more land and to build more homes. Short answer to your question is yes, the states and territories have got a role to play, but we’ve got a role to play as well. The industry does. We’re training more people, we’re investing in social housing, affordable housing. There’s a measure in there that I haven’t been asked about yet, which is about making sure that the universities are doing their bit, building more student accommodation as well. And that just recognises we need all shoulders to the wheel. One of the biggest challenges in our economy is housing. We’ve shown a willingness to come to the table with a lot of Commonwealth money and we need everyone else to do their bit as well. =
JOURNALIST:
We’re at the tail end of a commodity price boom and an employment boom that’s really swelled government coffers. The Budget doesn’t have the budget imbalance until 2034. Is this pretty much the end of surpluses for another decade? Is this it for Australia for another decade without major changes to how we do things?
CHALMERS:
I think the work to get the budget in better nick is ongoing and we get asked from time to time, is this Budget going to be about restraint and being responsible? And we say, no – every Budget is going to be about restraint and being responsible and so the hard work of budget repair continues even after the really quite substantial progress that we’ve made again today and in our first 2 Budgets. You’re right that the commodity cycle is a little bit unpredictable – it was weak at the start of the year. We expect the labour market to soften. All of those things do have implications for the revenue take but, what we’ve shown is a willingness to chip away at this problem over time. There’s tax reform, spending restraint, savings, banking upward revisions to revenue when the inflation challenge is most acute and all of that is paying dividends. You should expect to see more of that effort in subsequent Budgets.
JOURNALIST:
Given the critical minerals production tax incentive, it doesn’t kick in until 2027. I’m just wondering, what does this mean for nickel companies that are struggling at the moment or would they not have been eligible? Can you give us some clarity on that?
CHALMERS:
First of all, we understand that there are nickel miners under pressure right now because there’s been some very volatile movements in the global nickel price as a consequence of the actions of other countries. That is primarily, at least at the moment, an issue around mining. Whereas our critical minerals production tax credit is more geared towards refining and processing, so, value adding in critical minerals and so they are not the same thing. Obviously we’re very conscious of the pressures on the nickel industry – we added them to the list so that they could access loans. We’re in discussions with the CEOs of the companies, as you’d expect the Treasurer, the Resources Minister and others to be. Primarily, the timing of that investment in that production tax credit is all about recognising it’s a tax break for production. It’s when companies are refining and processing critical minerals and so it takes a couple of years for them to get up and running.
Thanks very much, everybody.