Gareth Hutchens

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

As the dust settles on the government's big federal budget announcements, questions still remain about how and when changes will take place.

But what do some of Australia's leading economists think of the proposed policies a fortnight on?

And power prices are set to fall for most customers, with even bigger drops for some businesses.

What's driving that relief?

Welcome to ABC Business Daily.

Gareth, lovely to have you here.

There's been a lot of airtime, a lot of AI slop, a lot of articles, a lot of chat, including on this very podcast about unpacking the details of the recent Australian federal budget.

You've got a great piece which people can read on the ABC News website.

That's got analysis from some of Australia's top economists on the policies that were put forth both by the government and the coalition.

So who did you talk to and what did they have to say?

So we've been very focused on the now of this budget, but you're saying when you talk to these people with a longer view, they're really making the point about

settings about how we tax assets, how we tax income, and how over time, we're just going to have a smaller proportion of workers compared to the number of people who will be depending on the system to provide.

So there's been a lot of talk about these two together.

So he's actually saying that you didn't have to do negative gearing because it's actually the CGT discount that's been driving housing investment.

Now, I've been fascinated to hear what Ken Henry had to say.

He's a former Treasury Secretary.

He wrote a substantial attempt at a rewrite, kind of framework of how tax in Australia could work.

He took it to government and it has largely sat on the shelf since then.

What does he think about these changes that are being proposed now?