After serving up a second round of tax cuts and energy rebates, the Albanese government hopes its 2025 budget leaves everyone thinking they’re winners.
But some Australians will get particularly big benefits from new spending, while others will lose out.
Homes with no internet will be brought online while consultants and contractors will stay cut off from the government purse. Some alcohol manufacturers and pubs will get tax breaks while vape and illegal cigarette vendors will face a beefed-up police force.
Here’s a breakdown of the winners and losers in the 2025 federal budget.
Winners
People with no or slow internet
Unlucky Australians with no connection to the national broadband network will finally be brought online, while 622,000 households will be upgraded from the Coalition’s slower fibre-to-the-node to a full fibre connection by 2030.
The budget sets aside another $3bn to finish the rollout of the NBN, almost two decades after the network was announced. The upgrade should provide faster and more reliable internet for the remaining frustrated households.
Autarchy enthusiasts
Fans of economic self-sufficiency will be cheered by a new campaign encouraging customers to “Buy Australian”. The government will spend $20m in the coming financial year on initiatives to boost Australian-made products.
While the budget papers have pages of commentary on the uncertain global trade environment and new US tariffs, there is little detail on what this new campaign will involve.
Iron and aluminium producers may also be eligible for new grants encouraging them to shift to green energy, with $3bn over the next two decades put aside. That comes on top of the $219m bailout for the Whyalla steelworks announced in February.
Tradies
Some trades workers and apprentices will benefit from plans to streamline licences and boost funding.
Electricians would need just one licence to work across Australia under a plan announced in this budget to let sparkies move around without needing new occupational checks.
The treasurer says other occupations may yet move towards a national framework like the forthcoming model, which will be developed with state and territory governments, unions and employers in the electrical trades.
Some housing construction apprentices will get double the amount of financial support that they’re now entitled to, up to $10,000, from 1 July this year. Residential construction is now included in the incentive program the government established in its 2022 budget for apprentices in clean energy industries, at a cost of $626.9m.
Boozers, brewers and pubs
Pubs and brewers will face lower taxes, which should help keep a lid on alcohol prices.
The draught beer excise will stay at its current level for two years from August 2025, leaving pubs (or patrons) $10m better off in the coming year.
Alcohol makers will have further access to schemes offsetting their tax liabilities from July 2026, when the caps on excise remission claims and a winemaker rebate will rise from $350,000 to $400,000. Combined with the beer tax freeze, the industry will be $165m better off.
Aged care workers
Aged care workers can rest assured their wage rises will be delivered, with the budget dedicating an extra $90m for nurses and their employers in the sector, on top of $2.5bn of funding increases already set aside.
The increased wage rates were the result of a Fair Work Commission call to bump up minimum award wages.
Spies
Australia’s intelligence agencies will get about $45m over the next four years to boost their abilities in response to a government report, released last week.
Intelligence operatives will get additional training, at a cost of nearly $15m, while nearly $30m will go to the Office of National Intelligence to implement other priority recommendations out of the independent intelligence review.
Pandas
The two giant pandas in Adelaide zoo will get an extra $7.6m in the next decade, with the federal government giving the big bamboo-eaters some support in partnership with the South Australian government.
Another animal getting a helping hand from the 2025 budget is the Maugean skate, the endangered species at the centre of a political storm over the future of salmon farming in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour. The skate’s captive breeding program will be expanded at a cost of $3m over three years.
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Losers
Renters and first home buyers
Australians hoping for more help in the overheated housing market will be sorely disappointed by the 2025 budget.
The major new housing measure is an $800m expansion in the government’s forthcoming Help to Buy program, which widens eligibility but still only has room for 40,000 applicants.
There is only one new measure to boost housing supply: a $54m spend to increase the supply of prefabricated and modular housing.
The government admits only 45,000 of the promised 1.2m homes were built in the first quarter of its flagship five-year plan, but says its efforts to increase the construction workforce, improve the planning system and encourage new home builds will ease the shortage.
And while the last two budgets gave low-income renters a big boost in rent assistance payments, the government has not opted for a third.
Consultants and government contractors
The Albanese government has continued its campaign against consultant spending, slashing nearly $720m from expected spending on consultants, contractors and labour hire in the financial year 2028-29.
It had already cut $4bn worth of public service spending on external labour since coming to office.
Meanwhile, an extra 3,400 public servants will start work in the next year, meaning the government will have seen a net extra 40,000 workers join the public service.
Tax evaders, dodgy tax agents and scammers
Big companies, multinationals and businesses under-reporting their taxable income will face extra scrutiny as the government goes after tax evaders. Almost $1bn will go to the Australian Taxation Office as it pushes for better tax compliance but the government expects to make back an extra $2bn in receipts over the next four years.
Risky tax agents and practitioners offering poor or unlawful advice will also be targeted with harsher sanctions by a beefed-up Tax Practitioners Board, bringing in nearly $50m in the next four years at a cost of nearly $30m.
And a further $6.7m will keep the National Anti-Scam Centre in action, after it was set up in 2023 to help the public and private sector work together to fight scammers.
Vape peddlers and cigarette black market
Tobacco and vape vendors will be on the run from extra policing, with nearly $160m going towards enforcement measures on illicit nicotine products.
Measures include $50m to an Australian federal police taskforce fighting organised crime, $40m will go to state and territory governments and an extra $4m for a campaign targeting the motivations and behaviours of people who use illicit tobacco.
Apart from the health effects, tobacco sales have been a big issue for the government because under-the-counter sales of cigarettes and vapes avoid taxes. Rising secret sales have seen tobacco tax revenue fall away, with government projections for the tax take falling by $6.9bn over five years compared with what it estimated in December last year.
Debt and deficit haters
After two surpluses, in part thanks to windfall commodity revenue and a strong job market, the budget has plunged back into deficit – where it is expected to stay for at least another five years.
At least some of that is due to the government’s new spending decisions, including the newly announced tax cuts, which are set to cost the coffers $17bn over five years.
Gross government debt is also set to pass a trillion dollars in the coming financial year – later than forecast when the Albanese government came to office, but nonetheless a grim milestone if you’re a fan of small government.
Foreign home buyers
Foreign residents will be banned from buying established housing for two years, starting on 1 April, with temporary residents and overseas-owned companies among those barred.
Overseas investors will also be hit with stronger audits as the government targets efforts to buy up space or “land bank”.
The government says the ban will push foreign residents to invest in new housing instead while keeping existing housing stock for Australians. It will cost the budget $90m in forgone revenue as overseas investors are normally charged extra fees.