Labor’s 2026 budget delivered barely six weeks ago, is a masterclass in deception and incompetence. It attracted widespread, well deserved, outrage, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dismissed as ‘fear-mongering’. Even so, his Treasurer was forced into an embarrassing backflip on some so-called ‘tax reforms’.

Despite the denials, the Opposition, business leaders and the media, did have a point. In the lead-up to the 2025 election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was repeatedly asked whether Labor would touch capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing. He stated emphatically it would not. Come the first budget after that election and, now with a massive majority, those commitments meant nothing.

As defence, the Prime Minister insists Labor merely ‘changed its position’. He reassuringly proposes to ‘grandperson’ some existing tax arrangements while maintaining the focus on productivity and ‘intergenerational fairness’.

Labor’s central theme is that taxing the well-off today will deliver a more equal society tomorrow. Yet this is a false claim. Labor and Treasury well know that big-spending governments and central planning are the antithesis of equality, increased productivity and wealth creation.

Still, advocating a classless society is intended to appeal to young voters and is at the heart of Labor ideology. It conforms to its deep Marxist-Leninist leanings which call for a powerful vanguard party to establish an anti-capitalist, socialist state. Fifty years after Whitlam, Labor again senses ‘it’s time’.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is a believer. He advocates ‘humanising capital’ and imagines ‘the transformation of the welfare state into a managerial utopia with the government, in collaboration with (industry) superannuation funds, acting as benevolent resource allocators through which autocratic technocratic elites will manage all aspects of society’.

True to these beliefs Chalmers is ever the class warrior. He characterises the rich as the enemy and describes Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor, as ‘born already at the top of the ladder’, referring to Taylor’s grandfather who headed construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Of course he conveniently ignores his own children’s circumstances who are born ‘already at the top of the ladder’, courtesy of their father’s political connections.

But for the masses, ‘From each according to their ability to each according to their needs’ is Labor’s reassuring message. Growing the ‘care economy’ to make more citizens dependent on the state is integral to its Marxist-Leninist objectives. It includes making the elderly pay for private health cover while expanding access to childcare.

Parroting Karl Marx, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher spouts, ‘The earlier children are put into childcare the better prepared they are for school.’ Indeed, Marx strongly believed the best way to defeat capitalism was to marginalise the family. For Marxists, the sooner indoctrination begins the better.

So from kindergarten on, under today’s school curriculum, children learn they are privileged descendants of white supremacists and, through cultural and financial recognition, they must atone for the sins of their forebears. Fortunately a benevolent government will ensure a lifetime of welfare for all. What they aren’t told is that people who live in revered ‘benevolent’ countries like China, suffer the oppression of party elites and experience greater wealth disparity than Australians.

But they don’t have to look to China.

Policies intended to eliminate disadvantage like the NDIS and Aboriginal affairs have produced anything but equality of outcome. Rather, they have seen huge disparities with significant wealth going to providers and cheaters and Aboriginal industry leaders.

The nation’s socialist capital, the Melbourne City Area, is another example. It’s home to Australia’s greatest wealth inequality and most crime. It follows 12 years of Victorian Labor governments pursuing strongly centralist rule. It boasts the nation’s most generous safety nets, the highest taxes, and the strictest workplace laws.

As a consequence, businesses have collapsed and people with skills and wealth-creating assets have moved interstate and overseas. The leader of a peak Victorian industry body advises against panicking, but a recent Community Pulse poll found 36 per cent of respondents were still considering emigrating.

Undaunted, the ideological Dr Chalmers blindly ignores these lessons. He seems unconcerned that global businesses like Chevron, Woodside and BHP have signalled caution about further investment in Australia. Like the fleeing Victorians, these companies consider Australia is becoming increasingly uncompetitive and are looking to invest elsewhere.

Perhaps Dr Chalmers thinks his ‘autocratic, technocratic elites’ and ‘benevolent resource allocators’, will fill the void? If so, Australians must pray they aren’t the same people who gave them Chris Bowen, Snowy Hydro 2, the NBN, the Inland Rail, and Whyalla ‘green steel’.

Still, the Albanese government remains undeterred and governs as if there is no tomorrow. Better that Australians ignore the $1.25 trillion of debt forecast in the budget and the $79 billion of borrowings to be refinanced next year at significantly higher interest rates. Thanks to Victoria, Australia’s credit rating may be downgraded.

But with an election due in 2028, when choosing between cutting spending or borrowing more, Labor will spend more, for nothing will deter it from its ideological mission to make Australia a socialist state. If that means further mortgaging the future of tomorrow’s generations, so be it. It’s what makes its claim of ‘intergenerational fairness’ so wicked.

But there are clear signs the electorate has had enough. One Nation in most polls is ahead of the two major parties and Senator Pauline Hanson leads Mr Albanese as preferred prime minister.

These polls seem to reflect the majority’s rejection of ‘uni-party’ policies and a yearning for authentic politicians in whom voters can trust. The negative reaction to Labor’s latest budget emphasises the point.

Australians want living standards to rise not fall. They increasingly believe zero emissions and renewable energy policies are a hoax. And they are opposed to uncontrolled migration, social division, the crackdown on free speech and the woke indoctrination posing as education of their children.

Indeed, while Liberals benched Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for saying so in the last election campaign, most Australians really do want to ‘make Australia great again’.