Delivering cost of living relief is our number one priority as a government. We’ve delivered tax cuts to every taxpayer, energy bill relief to every household and cheaper child care for 8,000 local families. And we’ve got wages moving again so that Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn.


Tax Cuts for Every Taxpayer

Labor’s bigger and fairer tax cuts are helping Australians keep more of what they earn. We’ve made sure no one gets left behind. This saw 95,000 locals $1441 better off on average. A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will ensure that all 14 million Australian taxpayers will receive a tax cut, on top of our tax relief that's already rolling out.   

Combined with Labor’s first round of tax cuts, the average tax cut is expected to be around $43 per week or more than $2,200 in 2026–27, and around $50 per week or more than $2,500 in 2027–28.

Our cost-of-living tax cuts are about rewarding hard working Australians.

We want Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. Peter Dutton and the Liberals just want Australians to work longer for less.

A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will make the tax system simpler and deliver more cost-of-living relief by introducing a $1,000 instant tax deduction from 2026-27.

The reform will allow taxpayers to choose to claim a $1,000 instant tax deduction instead of claiming individual work-related expenses, saving time and money.

Taxpayers won’t need to collect receipts for deductions less than $1,000 and will save on the costs of professional tax advice.

Providing Energy Bill Relief

The Albanese Labor Government is providing $300 energy bill relief for every Australian household and $325 for small businesses.

Labor will provide more meaningful and sensible cost of living assistance, with an additional $150 in Energy Bill Relief for every Australian household and around one million small businesses.

Cheaper home batteries

A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will make batteries cheaper, slashing energy bills for households, small businesses and community facilities by up to 90 per cent.

We will roll out our $2.3 billion Cheaper Home Batteries Program from 1 July 2025 reducing the cost of a typical installed battery by 30 per cent – with over one million new batteries expected by 2030.

Analysis by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water shows a household with existing rooftop solar could save up to $1,100 off their power bill every year, and a household installing a new solar and a battery system could save up to $2,300 a year – up to 90 per cent of a typical family electricity bill.

This will help households reduce reliance on the grid – and take back control of their power bill.

Wipe 20% off student debt

A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will wipe 20% off everyone’s student debt. Labor will also raise the repayment threshold and lower repayment rates to help Australians with the cost of living.

Labor has already wiped $3 billion in student debt and fixed the way indexation is calculated on student debt, to help with the cost of degrees and the cost of living.

Cheaper child care

Labor’s cheaper child care reforms have helped 8,000 local families with the cost of living. Cheaper child care is providing working families with more choice and helping children to access high quality early childhood education and care.

A re-elected Labor government will guarantee eligibility for 3 days of subsidised child care a week for children who need it, and will build more child care centres across Australia.

More Support for Parents

We want new parents to have the flexibility, support and choice they need. That’s why we’re delivering the biggest boost to government Paid Parental Leave since Labor created it in 2011.

We’re moving towards six months of paid time off – with the flexibility to choose how to split it between parents.

And we’re introducing paid super on government Paid Parental Leave.

It’ll mean more dads can take time off work, so caring responsibilities can be shared more equally. And it’ll mean more opportunity for mums, boosting workforce participation across the economy.

Getting Wages Moving

After a decade of the Liberals and Nationals in government deliberately keeping wages low, our Labor Government is getting wages moving again.

Under Labor, real wages are growing again. And with our tax cuts, Australians are keeping more of what they earn.

Not only have we seen three consecutive pay rises for Australian workers on awards, Labor has delivered pay rises for aged care and early childhood education and care workers.

We’ve taken the gender pay gap to a record low.

We’ve banned pay secrecy clauses.

We’ve made deliberate wage theft a crime.

We’ve legislated our ‘same job, same pay’ protections for casual workers.

Cheaper medicines

Labor built Medicare and we will always strengthen it.

By delivering the biggest ever reduction in the cost of PBS prescriptions and freezing the cost of PBS medicines, Labor is making hundreds of medicines cheaper for Australians.

For Australians with pensioner or concession cards, we’re freezing the price of PBS medicines for five years. So those Australians won’t pay more than $7.70 for the medicine they need.

These policies have meant locals have saved over $7 million.

And we’ll make medicine even cheaper, so the most you’ll pay for a PBS medicine is just $25 a script. This will save locals $1.5 million.

Free TAFE

Labor’s Free TAFE is changing lives. Labor is delivering close to 600,000 Free TAFE places, helping Australians to gain skills and get ahead. Whether it’s child care or cybersecurity, accounting or aged care – with TAFE, you can be trained without worrying about the cost.

Labor is helping Australians to gain skills and get ahead by making Free TAFE permanent.

A Fair Go For Consumers

We want to make sure Australians are getting a fair deal at the checkout.

A re-elected Albanese Labor Government will crack down on price gouging by supermarkets because Australian families deserve fair prices for their groceries.

Australians shouldn’t be treated like mugs at the checkout – that’s why Labor will make supermarket price gouging illegal.

That’s why we’re holding supermarkets to account with a stronger competition watchdog and a mandatory Grocery Code of Conduct. By increasing competition and accountability in the sector we will secure fairer prices.

The Albanese Government is committed to continued access to cash and ensuring it can be used to pay for essentials.   

We’re also cracking down on businesses ripping off Australians by banning unfair trading practices. The Government’s actions will address a wide range of practices, including:

  • ‘Subscription traps’ that use arduous and confusing steps to make cancelling a subscription difficult
  • ‘Drip pricing’ practices where fees are hidden or added throughout the stages of a purchase
  • Deceptive and manipulative online practices that aim to confuse or overwhelm consumers, omit or hide material information or create a false sense of urgency or scarcity – this can include warnings that a customer only has limited time to purchase a product
  • Dynamic pricing where a product’s price changes during the transaction process
  • Requiring consumers to set up an account and provide unnecessary information to make an online purchase