Chapter 1: What are the key highlights of Budget Day?
This is a Squiz Podcast, where your shortcut to being informed. Today's podcast is brought to you by ComBank, which has just announced Aussie fashion label Bear Park as the designer of its new corporate wardrobe. ComBank has a 40-year history of teaming up with Australian fashion brands for its uniform, part of its commitment to supporting local business. Good morning, I'm Alice Dempster.
And I'm Andrew Williams.
It's Tuesday the 12th of May. In your Squiz today, Budget Day is here, Iran's peace proposal is rejected, speed running into trouble and whales make waves. This is your Squiz today. It's been in the headlines for weeks and this evening, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is delivering his fifth federal budget.
And as we know, with various wars still going on around the world, a fuel supply crisis, cost of living problems, rising interest rates, he's got quite the needle to thread.
Chapter 2: How is the Albanese government addressing intergenerational inequality?
And it sounds like one of the ways that he's going to thread that needle is by breaking the odd promise or two. So a couple of topics to watch out for tonight are the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing. These are both policies that lower the tax burden on property investors and owners and as a result are quite popular amongst property investors and owners.
And changes to either one of those were ruled out by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese before the 2025 federal election.
But with the government looking to take on what it calls intergenerational inequality, basically the idea that it's harder to get ahead or invest in property for younger Australians these days, changing these policies and sort of balancing the ledger away from property investors and more towards younger people looking to get into the housing market is a way that they could do that.
So that's why these two policies in particular are now back on the table.
And so you can probably expect some broken promise headlines tomorrow morning if those changes do go ahead. And while he hasn't confirmed either reform yet, Chalmers says the status quo in the tax and housing system is broken. He says it's locking out too many Australians.
Yeah, so that's likely to be the headline thing, but it's not the only area of policy that the government has its eyes on.
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Chapter 3: What happened with Julian Ingram's case recently?
It has also flagged significant cuts to the NDIS, possibly some business tax reform as well, and a potential tax offset for Aussie workers, which reports say won't kick in until the new financial year, but it could be sort of $200 to $300. So we'll wait and see what eventuates.
But how to work tonight in terms of the reporting is that various journos from media organisations around the country have been invited to to what's called a budget lockup this afternoon. Now, lockup is not a euphemism.
They actually can't leave the room for about six hours, except to go to the toilet, while they go through the budget papers and produce their coverage and analysis, so it's all ready to go.
Yeah, but from personal experience, they do get quite a good snack table normally, so that's good. Excellent. Their reporting is under embargo, so they can't hit publish until 7.30 East Coast time tonight, which is when Chalmers will step up and give his budget address, which gives us, Andrew, about eight or nine hours before we'll be back breaking it all down for tomorrow's episode.
It's been a while since we've spoken about Julian Ingram, but he was back in the news yesterday.
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Chapter 4: What was the outcome of Iran's peace proposal?
If you can't place his name, he's the 37-year-old who was suspected of murdering three people in regional New South Wales in January.
Yeah, police accused him of shooting and killing his former partner, Sophie Quinn, her boyfriend, John Harris, and her aunt, Nerida Quinn, in the rural town of Lake Cargelago, which is about 450km west of Sydney. They've been searching for him ever since. So the update yesterday was that the search could be over because police found a body next to an abandoned ute, which they believe is him.
They say that the body was in a very decomposed state, so it still needs to be formally identified. But they also said that the find brings closure, I'm quoting here, and gives some solace to the town so they can relax.
Reports say that Ingram had a history of domestic violence offences and police say that they'll now be looking into what happened in the lead up to the shootings and how he was able to access a gun. If this has brought up anything for you, we'll link to some support services in the episode notes today. Music
Andrew, in Squiz the Day yesterday, you mentioned that the US was considering Iran's latest peace proposal to end the war that began in late February.
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Chapter 5: What is the trend of Scientology speed running in Australia?
We found out the answer to that pretty quickly.
Yeah, later that morning, US President Donald Trump said that the current indefinite ceasefire is on life support because he did not have a good reaction to that proposal, which asked the US to end its naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz and for an end to all fighting in the region, including between Israel and Hezbollah. in Lebanon. So that's what was asked, but the response was not good.
Trump called it an incredibly weak proposal and said that he didn't finish reading it before rejecting it. So that'll make for a bit of an interesting week, as if there are any non-interesting weeks at the moment. He's on his way for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.
Which could be a little bit tense because China buys more Iranian oil than any country in the world, and it's called for a complete end to the war after meeting with Iran's foreign minister last week. A message from ComBank, which has just teamed up with Aussie fashion label Bear Park for its new uniform collection.
If you missed it yesterday, stay listening at the end of the podcast for my chat with Bella Pereira, the founder of Bear Park.
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Chapter 6: Why do whales migrate along Australia's coastlines?
We talk about her background in banking and how that's helped shape her brand today. We also discuss her design philosophy, which is all about elevated style and functionality. And she gives me a sense of what the brand will be showing this week at Australian Fashion Week.
Music
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Chapter 7: What are the best spots for whale watching in Australia?
You'll find that link in today's episode notes. If you've been on any news sites, you might have seen the term Scientology speed run doing the rounds recently. It's an online trend out of the US that's now being adopted in Australia.
So the idea is, and it's sort of half a joke, half a real thing. So a bunch of online users will sign up to swarm or speed run, which is a term from video games where you try and complete a video game as quickly as possible. A location that they think is secretive or needs to be exposed. So you might remember there was something similar around Area 51 in the U.S.
where they were going to swarm that. But in this case, it's the Church of Scientology, which is this controversial religious organization created by the author L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s. Now, on Saturday, this trend came to Australia.
Chapter 8: What insights did Bella Pereira share about her fashion designs?
200 people rushed the Scientology HQ on George Street in Brisbane. And I mentioned that it started as a joke, but a police car was allegedly damaged and two teenagers were charged. And the church says that this kind of stunt is harassment in its words.
Police in Queensland say the kids doing it might think it's funny, but their behaviour is real. So the consequences need to be real. As well as in person, they're keeping an eye out online for any wrongdoing.
May marks the start of a busy time along our coastlines when the whales begin moving from the chilly Antarctic to the warmer waters of Queensland, northern New South Wales and the Ningaloo Coast to the Kimberley in Western Australia, all for breeding season.
These are known as humpback highways. Lovely piece of alliteration there. And Macquarie University has recently done a study on whale behaviours when they're on the move. Some of its key findings came from social media footage of 66 whales off the coast of WA. One of the things that they found was that the whales were seen gaping, where they hold their mouths open while turned upside down.
And researchers reckon that it's the social behaviour that signals that they're ready to play. So if you needed a connection between whales and dogs, there's one.
If you want to do some gaping of your own from the shore, we'll link to some of the best spots for whale watching in the episode notes, which I have to point out also includes some spots to see the southern right whales that also carve along the South Australian coastline from around June each year.
Very important to make your way to South Australia at any opportunity.
Yeah, another reason to visit. Squeeze the day now. We've already talked about budget night, but the Albanese government is also set to reveal its response into Peter Murphy's report into online gambling reforms this week. And there are reports that that could come today, even with the budget due as well. It's been well over a thousand days since that report was handed down.
That was back in 2023. So that's one to watch out for as well.
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