After Labor handed down its fifth budget, Anthony Albanese spent the week answering one question: had he broken his promise?

The government wanted the budget framed as a fairness agenda built around changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts, and a pitch to younger Australians locked out of housing. Instead, the immediate political fight became whether voters could trust the prime minister.

But the noise around broken-promises obscures deeper conversations about what the housing tax changes will actually deliver, the omission of a gas export levy, and the tens of billions of dollars being cut from the NDIS.

Meanwhile, Angus Taylor’s budget reply showed where the Coalition wants the argument to go next: migration, welfare and net zero – as One Nation surges in the polls.

Today, Cheek Media CEO and host of Big Small Talk, Hannah Ferguson, on the ambition, compromises and contradictions in Labor’s budget – and what young voters are being asked to accept.

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Guest: Cheek Media CEO and host of the Big Small Talk podcast, Hannah Ferguson.

Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas