Sasha Barbagallo

A Listener Production.

Hello, Sasha Barbagat with you.

Welcome to The Briefing.

You might have heard of Palantir, the AI-driven analytics company that's being used by ICE in the US and Coles right here in Australia.

Now there's a push for the Australian government to rip up its contracts with the controversial body, with one senator dubbing it a national security risk.

We deep dive Palantir, its role in Australia and the fight to get rid of it in the second half of this episode.

First, it is time for the headlines with Chris Spirou on Tuesday 5 May.

Yeah, so this incentive allows employers to avoid paying fringe benefits tax on EVs under $91,000 purchased through a novated lease, but it will be moved to a 25% discount.

Now, that will save the budget $1.7 billion over the next four years.

after the cost of the tax break blew out to $1.35 billion this financial year alone.

Labor is continuing meantime to lay the groundwork ahead of next Tuesday's budget, with more chatter around whether a key election promise is being broken by the government through the introduction of changes to capital gains and negative gearing rules, Chris.

Yeah, that's right.

Interesting there to see Jim Chalmers saying that an election promise doesn't matter when it comes to, you know, tackling intergenerational, you know, inconsistencies and wealth and things like that.

Yeah.

I do think Labor has a bit of a mandate to make changes in this space given the landslide win and they are... It is tactical.

They're two years out from the next election right now.

That's absolutely right.

But I do think that for, like, most Australians, you know...

there's the argument that they're targeting mum and dad investors here who have one or two properties and it's how they, you know, are able to get ahead and, you know, set themselves up for retirement and things like that, which is important.

However, I think a lot of people are saying that what's important at the moment is how we can support first home buyers getting into the market, whether that's younger people, whether that's, you know, nurses who, you know, can't even afford to live near where they work.