Australian Labor Party

Budget impacts over the forward estimates

The combined impact of Labor's 63 election commitments would improve the underlying cash and fiscal balances but decrease the headline cash balance over the 2025‑26 Budget forward estimates period, relative to the PEFO baseline (Table 3‑1).

The improvement in the underlying cash balance reflects a net decrease in payments, entirely due to savings from Further reducing spending on consultants, contractors and labour hire, and non-wage expenses (ECR-2025-1596) and Increasing Student Visa fees (ECR-2025-1891) which more than offset all other payments increases. The decrease in overall payments was partly offset by a decrease in receipts, reflecting $1,000 instant tax deduction for work-related expenses (ECR-2025-1700), which outweighs the receipts from Increasing Student Visa fees (ECR-2025-1891). The impacts on the fiscal balance are of a similar magnitude and nature.

The difference between the headline cash balance and the underlying cash balance is due to Delivering 100,000 homes and 5% deposits for all first home buyers (ECR-2025-1344), which provides up to $8 billion in concessional loans, and the equity investment component of the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve (ECR-2025-1529).^[17]

The bulk of Labor's 63 election commitments affect only payments (54 commitments). There are 4 commitments which contain both payment and receipt components: $1,000 instant tax deduction for work-related expenses (ECR-2025-1700), Increasing student visa fees (ECR-2025-1891), Economic Resilience Program (ECR-2025-1864), and 20 medical CSPs for the University of Tasmania (ECR-2025-1624). The remaining 5 commitments have no financial impact on the budget.

The result of these impacts is a total of $150.7 billion in underlying cash deficits over the forward estimates.

Table 3-1: Summary financial implications of Labor’s election commitments ($ billion)

Source: 2025 PEFO and PBO analysis.
Note: A positive impact indicates an increase in the budget balance or debt levels. A negative impact indicates a reduction in the budget balance or debt levels. Public debt interest is relative to the budget balances, so a negative impact indicates an increase in PDI cost. Figures may not sum to totals due to rounding.
..       Not zero but rounded to zero.

The PBO’s estimates of the financial implications of Labor's platform are not materially different from those published by Labor prior to the election – both indicate modest underlying cash balance improvements over the forward estimates relative to PEFO.^[18] While there are some differences for individual commitments, including the PBO inclusion of some departmental costs, when taken together, these differences amount to not more than 0.1% of GDP in any given year and are not considered significant.

Further detail about the combined impact of Labor’s election commitments on expenses, revenue and other budget aggregates is available in Detailed financial tables - Australian Labor Party.