One neglected economic element in Labor’s agenda will come back to bite them, and us

July 10, 2026 — 5:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

About a year ago, a new book called Abundance was all the rage among Labor people in Canberra. Treasurer Jim Chalmers was particularly taken. It was being passed around the cabinet table, he said.

Written by rock-star progressive American journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, the book borrows from right-wing thinking to outline a new agenda for the left. In the technological era, they suggest, progressives should drop rules and regulations so that housing and energy can be made cheaper, and we can invent more of what we need to make things cheaper for working people.

“The fascinating thing I found about Abundance was basically, even if you have quite a progressive outlook, we’ve got to stop getting in our own way,” Chalmers said in June last year. “We want good things to happen, we’ve got to stop strangling good things from happening. I think that’s very, very compelling for us.”

Skip ahead to winter of this year and Labor is speaking in triumphalist terms after passing a budget which had redistribution, not growth, at its core. The AI revolution will be the biggest test of Labor’s commitment to ending scarcity, but more on that later.

Property crash? Unlikely, but if Joe Hockey’s right, watch out Australia

Malcolm KnoxJournalist, author and columnist

Journalist, author and columnist

Its changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax will reduce housing supply by 35,000, per the budget’s forecasts. Those estimates say that construction subsidies will outweigh the effect of the tax rises. A fall in home building in the March quarter shows existing supply incentives haven’t yet worked, however. Expanding the CGT change to all........

© The Sydney Morning Herald