Angus Taylor has been saying that he can find savings of around $100 billion by, among other things, raiding the Housing Australia Future Fund and the various other Funds, but not the Future Fund itself. So how much money is in these funds?

Investment funds balances at 30 June 2026

Source – 2025-26 Budget Paper 1

On the face of it there is $61,148 million that could be cut if you don’t touch the Future Fund (which, because it was set up by Peter Costello, is regarded as a holy of all holies by the LNP).

Angus also seems to think that there is also $19 billion in the rewiring the nation fund and a further $15 billion in the national reconstruction fund. These operate in a different way but to the other funds, but let’s be kind and believe that is can be done. Tat gets us to about $95 billion—close to Taylor’s $100 billion just by attacking the funds.

So that’s great? Money saved!

Unfortunately, no.

The problem is abolishing those funds does not “save” any money. These funds are usually put into the Future Fund and new funds are raised to match it. The new fund is matched by new debt and there is no change in the government’s net worth.

If that sounds confusing think of it like if you borrowed from the bank and left the money in the bank, you are neither better off nor worse off.

So Angus Taylor could eliminate all of the funds but it would have zero effect on budget spending.

Preferential voting is one of the best parts of the Australian voting system and we should all be working very hard to protect it.

So Peter Dutton is saying we need all that mining revenue to pay for roads in western Sydney?

Nope.

We get this claim a lot mostly from mining companies, who would have you believe they are the backbone of Australia’s economy,

Well economies don’t have backbones and if they did and ours was mining, then we would be truly stuffed.

I mean even if we ignore the fact that their profits are made off the back of public resources, and are heavily publicly subsidised our research of the federal and state budgets has found:

• Just 5% of all state and federal revenue comes from the taxes and royalties paid by the mining industry.
• So yeah, 95% of Australia’s public services are paid for by other industries.
• Mining is also heavily subsidised in Australia, receiving the vast bulk of the $11 billion fuel tax credit scheme.

If Australia really did rely on the low-employing, tax-avoiding, high-polluting, and largely foreign-owned mining industry for its economic security, we would be in serious trouble.

It’s even worse when we focus on the gas industry – and industry which hates two things – paying taxes and royalties, and selling gas to Australians.

Nurses for example pay more income tax that does the entire gas industry, and of course former uni students pay around 4 times more in HECS each year than do gas companies on PRRT.

If Peter Dutton thinks mining company taxes are so great for Australia, then he really should be in favour of making sure they pay much, much more.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Chief Economist Greg Jericho and co-host Hayden Starr discuss Trump’s tariffs, the Reserve Bank’s magic 8-ball monetary policy, and why minimum wage increases don’t drive up inflation.

After finally achieving a life long dream of putting petrol in a car, Peter Dutton could, at last, smile again.

Labor have flipped on the instant asset write off and are now extending the $20,000 figure (it was due to go back to $1,000) because – yup, you guessed it, they are in western Sydney today.

The Coalition want to make it $30,000 because everyone loves the giant ute vote.

Dutton:

Let’s look at a local tradie in Western Sydney. Under Albanese on budget night is you could have an instant asset write-off for capped at $1,000. The Government doesn’t believe in this. What they have done now by flipping it to $20,000 is to try and patch up a problem of their own making to get them through the election. And then I think it reverts back to $1,000. What we have got is a $30,000 instant asset write-off available for small businesses so what it means is that the coffee shop can go out and purchase new equipment and write that off as a deductible expense in that year.

Under Mr Albanese’s plan, businesses will delay the purchase of equipment and, therefore, it hits the economy.

A tradie who can go out and purchase a ute can do so under our scheme, much more effectively than they can under the Labor’s scheme.

The other thing too to point out – we’re not going to have Labor’s car tax, not have Labor’s ute tax which tradies and others in Western Sydney and right across the country will be paying under this government. So that’s the different.

And shock me, shock me, shock me – one of the biggest criticisms of Peter Dutton has been how cosy he is with billionaires like Gina Rinehart and suddenly there are stories from Coalition sources that the relationship between Dutton and Rinehart has cooled over the gas plan.

DEIDRE CHAMBERS.

And would you look at that – now Dutton is talking about how he will sometimes have a different point of view to his friends because gosh darn it, he’s just got to stand up for Australia you know?

Dutton has been on this bender since Malcolm Turnbull publicly made the point that Dutton’s eco-system of billionaires – like Rupert Murdoch and Rinehart – were an asset in some ways, but also a golden leash in others, because how does he stand up against Trump when his besties are Team Trump all the way?

In response to the sudden cooling of his relationship with Rinehart, Dutton says:

I have respect for Gina Rinehart as Australia’s most successful businesswoman. She employs thousands of Australians and normally the Labor Party would celebrate that as well. There is an enormous contribution that the mining sector makes to Australia and we just evidenced that yesterday in Western Australia.

Without WA pumping as an economy, we aren’t paying for roads here in Western Sydney and we aren’t paying for schools and we aren’t building tunnels and infrastructure without that revenue from the mining sector*.

And we’ll have points of difference with many people, but that doesn’t mean it impacts your friendship or your relationship with different business people. So that’s the best response I can give you.

*Incoming fact check on this.

Where is the gas plan?

Peter Dutton:

We got a month-long campaign and there’s a lot that we’ll talk about over the course of this month but the main message is – who can you trust at the next election to manage the economy effectively? Who can you trust to bring down the price of petrol?

Mr Albanese is promising higher electricity prices, higher gas prices, higher petrol prices, and we are the party that will deliver that immediate relief to families and will provide medium-term through more gas coming into the system and longer-term through our zero emissions energy system with nuclear power as the baseload.

Now, that is a game-changer for our country. We’ll talk about that everyday between now and the election because I don’t believe that Australians can afford three more years of an Albanese Government.

Peter Dutton is holding this press conference at a petrol station, which comes a day after a column in the Financial Review said they couldn’t believe he hadn’t yet held a press conference at a petrol station, given the main cost of living offering from the Coalition is a cut to the fuel excise.

Asked why it has taken so long for Dutton to stand in front of fuel pumps, Dutton said:

We have spoken this from budget night. That’s, I think, a game-changer in terms of family budgets. If you vote for Mr Albanese at the next election, you’ll get higher interest rates, higher electricity prices, higher gas prices, you’ll get higher petrol prices, into imper pe tutety under the Albanese Government. Families need help, not in 15 months’ time. 25 cents a litre off, every litre you pump into your tank, if you’re a two-car family, it’s about $30 a week. That is a very significant savings for families and, you know, I’m very pleased with what we have been able to offer.

Q: Just to be clear on this point – are you saying you would tailor some of our defence spending, some of our defence priorities, to win favour with Donald Trump on tariffs?

Peter Dutton:

I’m saying that the obvious point – that when the Prime Minister says we live in the most precarious period since the end of the Second World War and he takes 80 billion out of defence, that’s not keeping us safe.

We will acquire capability and we will provide support to the Australian Defence Force with one objective in mind – and that is to keep us safe.

But I think our interests align with the United States. We buy the F-35s from the United States. The Labor Party cut that program. We have guaranteed that we will have another squadron of F-35s pause it’s in our country’s best interest.

What I think is what’s happened, I don’t think the Australian Prime Minister has been able to make the US President aware of then opportunities that exist in our relationship. That’s why every Australian is worse off under this Government and now including those who export. I want to make sure that we can keep our countries strong and we’ll do that through good economic management and that’s what we’re doing.

Does Peter Dutton realise that one of the reasons the world is less safe is literally because of Donald Trump, the man he is advocating for?