What you need to know from the latest True Issues reports, by JWS Research:
- The 2026 Federal Budget has landed poorly overall (45% say it is poor for them versus 12% good).
- The target audience of younger Australians are no more supportive (41% say it is poor for them personally versus 16% good).
- Despite this negative reception, there is strong support for many of its individual measures, including on healthcare, aged care and extending the foreign investor ban.
- Cost of living (78%) and housing (53%) continue to dominate people’s priorities.
- Pessimism over the national economy has deepened, with sentiment at net -36, the weakest result on record.
The latest edition of our True Issues public opinion tracking and analysis is now available online as well as the 2026 Federal Budget Special Release here.
The Australian public’s view of our national economic direction has tracked down again, but their awareness of the recent Federal Budget is up compared to the 2024 edition (the last one not delivered on the eve of an election campaign). With the global fuel crisis and Reserve Bank rate rises continuing to squeeze household finances, our True Issues ‘wrong track’ number on the national economy has deteriorated another 2 points since February to now sit at net -36. That constitutes an aggregate 16 point drop since November 2025. There is little doubt this latest Federal Budget was delivered in a community context of economic pessimism and rising angst.
Unsurprisingly many households were looking at what the Treasurer delivered on 12 May with a sense of heightened anticipation and attention. Our data shows that the proportion of the population who said they ‘know a little or a lot’ about this budget at 68%. By comparison in 2024 it was several points lower at 62%. Despite stronger overall awareness, knowledge of this year’s budget is significantly lower among under 35 year olds, at 47%. So, while many of the key reforms might be motivated by generational equity considerations, the extent to which younger Australians are immediately paying attention is a more complex question. Indeed, some of the data shows that reforms nominally designed by the Government to address generational inequity do not in fact secure higher levels of support amongst younger voters.
As JWS Research has already publicly canvassed, policy makers ought to be careful about how generational arguments land in the ears and minds of the community at large. Our research continues to illuminate how there are risks of division in emphasising the need for generational “square up”, leading to reduced support for some policy proposals. This is especially the case where broader, more unifying arguments also exist to support the same reform.
Turning to how Australians have initially reacted to the budget as an overall orchestration of economic decision making and values, we can draw some useful early conclusions. Whether a budget is considered ‘good or bad’ in the court of public opinion is of course a complex question. It requires both time for views to settle and a willingness to engage with the detail – both in terms of specific budget measures and demographic variances in sentiment. We therefore encourage readers to examine plenty of the smaller numbers contained in our Federal Budget Special Release, noting the survey was conducted only days after the Treasurer’s speech, and the full public response to this budget is still unfolding.
Our longstanding True Issues tracking offers important background context to the budget itself. The Government’s weakest performance areas remain cost of living and housing supply and affordability, followed by interest rates. Government performance on interest rates is little changed after a 10-point fall in February, following the first 2026 rate rise by the RBA. In addition, the budget did nothing to lift the Government’s overall performance score, which remains well below average.
The top issues Australians want policy decision makers to focus on remain consistent with our True Issues reporting earlier this year. The public wants government to respectively concentrate on cost of living, housing, health, economic management and then immigration. There is plenty of demographic (or vote preference) variability in the issues ladder and everything else we closely monitor, and for that we encourage you to click on the reports and examine the detail. Much of the issues insights are summarised further below after we initially give you a sense of how the recent budget has landed.
Some noteworthy insights from our May 2026 True Issues – the 41st wave of the series – have also appeared in some recent news coverage. You can access some of that coverage below
Tom Dusevic in The Australian newspaper: Inquirer: High migration, inflation are ‘electoral serial killers’ stalking Albanese government
Response to the 2026 Federal Budget
As a topline measure, this year’s budget has landed in the minds of Australians quite a lot worse than the 2024 budget (the last budget JWS Research polled in detail). In 2024 the difference between those who rated the budget as good for them (21%) versus those who rated it as poor (31%) was a net rating of -10. For the 2026 Federal Budget it is net -33. The proportion of the community who say it is poor for them personally this time is 45%. The 2026 budget has been initially rated as much worse for the country too: 21% think it is good versus 44% who think it is poor, a net rating of -23. In 2024 the net rating was only -2.
Reflecting the political lens that so many people now use to assess the policy landscape, big proportions of One Nation and LNP voters think it is a poor budget for them personally, while notably even ALP voters are rather lukewarm. Among the greatest critics of the budget are men aged 55 years and over, with 57% saying it’s a ‘poor’ budget for them personally. There is also little apparent enthusiasm among the budget’s target audience of younger Australians, with 41% of them rating it as ‘poor’ for them personally and only 16% rating it as ‘good’.
As we turn to specific measures contained in the budget papers, an interesting set of questions arise as to why the budget is rated so negatively overall when there is broad and often deep support for many of its bigger spending measures and specific announcements. Given much of the immediate post budget media coverage, it is also notable (and perhaps encouraging for the Government) that in a straight up contest between two competing principles, everyday Australians actually have a solid preference for tough decisions over keeping election promises.
Early interpretative analysis suggests the underlying reasons for the budget landing awkwardly could reflect a communications challenge on what the budget fundamentally delivers, concern the measures are insufficient to address cost of living concerns, or a ‘horn effect’ in terms of wider pessimism over the national economy (as previously noted above). It also could well be that the focus in the Government’s delivery of the budget and early media reporting of it was overwhelmingly on the measures with the lowest levels of support, and the higher supported measures were in most part lost in the headline noise.
There is majority support for nine of the 14 measures tested in the survey. Those attracting greatest support include:
- $25 billion in additional funding for public hospitals (82% support)
- additional aged care funding, including 5,000 more beds (80%)
- extending the ban on foreign investors from buying existing homes (79%).
Reflecting the high salience of housing in our regular True Issues tracking, depth of feeling on extending the foreign investor ban is particularly pronounced, with 55% ‘strongly’ supporting this. Indeed, support is much stronger for this measure and the $2 billion to speed up housing construction than for other measures designed to tackle housing affordability, including restricting negative gearing (37% support) and revising the capital gains tax discount (36% support). However, CGT reform is the only measure, where support does not outweigh opposition (36% support and 36% oppose). It is well worth noting too that support for both the prominent CGT and negative gearing changes is not higher among the under 35-year-old cohort.
The budget was arguably hitting some of the right notes even if many Australians don’t like the tune. The top three principles they believe governments should prioritise when making major economic and budget decisions in future include:
- improving housing affordability and helping younger Australians to build financial security (46%)
- building a more self-reliant economy that can better withstand global shocks (44%)
- making it more rewarding for people to work, earn more and get ahead financially (41%).
Principles that are lowest rated include:
- reducing emissions and supporting the transition to a lower carbon economy (18%) – suggesting the public’s focus is on the short to medium-term economic pain rather than the climate crisis
- protecting younger generations from higher government debt and higher taxes (22%) – indicating that intergenerational fairness is not a priority when seen through this fiscal prism.
Consistent with plenty of other research conducted by JWS Research over some time now, there is also a public appetite for fiscal discipline in the future. Three in five Australians (59%) think governments need to focus on reducing overall public spending rather than raise taxes (21%), with a further 19% unsure. This also potentially helps explain the overall negative reaction to the 2026 budget, if the narrative becomes one of ‘raising taxes’ rather than ‘tax reform’. This 3-1 ratio of ‘savings first’ before new taxes will be an important one for policy makers to manage in ongoing fiscal deliberations.
Three in five Australians (60%) support the Coalition’s significant budget reply proposal to increase income tax thresholds each year in line with inflation, while only 9% oppose it. Support is broad-based, with majority support across age-brackets as well as across the political spectrum, setting up an interesting contest of ideas at the next election. It is notable, however, that support for this move to end bracket creep receives a similar level of support as the Government’s work expenses standard deduction tax policy. Net support is +52 for the indexation offer and +49 for the standard deduction policy, despite the significantly higher tax relief indexation offers income earners over time. Moreover, support for this new Opposition policy is not higher among under 35s. All this suggests there is plenty more persuasion to be done to highlight the beneficiaries of threshold indexation, while the fiscal cost of delivering this big tax reform is also yet to receive due attention.
The significant background debate about our net migration forecasts in the budget are also assisted by our data on how the community sees our immigration rate in recent times. True Issues research shows 63% of us overall regard Australia’s current level of immigration as too high, with 26% saying it’s about right. But certain demographic types highlight much stronger negative views, including One Nation voters (94% see it as too high) and those who regard the budget as being poor for them personally (81%). Those who did not study at university, live in lower income households, aged over 55 years or who vote for the LNP are also significantly more likely to take a dim view of our level of immigration. In essence, from a democratic standpoint it is an important debate to responsibly undertake in the months ahead.
True Issues tracking – May 2026
Around three-quarters (78%) of adults continue to register cost of living in their top five issues requiring Government focus. With the 2025 interest rate cuts now offset by three consecutive cash rate rises, housing costs are further straining household budgets that are simultaneously dealing with the global fuel crisis and rising inflation.
A majority (53%) of adults also want more Government focus on housing supply and affordability. Amid deteriorating affordability, tight rental markets and a shortfall in new builds against government targets, housing is a key concern for two-thirds (66%) of 18 to 34 year olds.
Hospitals and healthcare and the economy and finances (43% and 42%, respectively) are the next most important issues. Economic concern has moved up seven percentage points since November, while healthcare is down five. After multiple RBA cash rate rises and amid growing concern about slowdown and recession, the economy remains a key issue among all age groups.
Fewer Australians (15%, down from 19% in February) now place social cohesion in their top five issues for Government attention. By contrast, major NDIS changes announced in the 2026 Federal Budget have lifted calls for more focus in this area (12%, up from 8%).
Public sentiment that the national economy is on the wrong track is widespread. The net direction trend is now -36, the worst on record in our True Issues series. Views about where the Victorian state economy is headed are particularly bad, with 58% of that state’s adult population regarding it as on the wrong track. Overall, one in three Australians remain reflectively optimistic and say their personal situation is heading in the right direction (33%), compared with one in four (26%) who say it is heading the wrong way.
Ratings of Australian Government performance have not recovered from the declines recorded between November and February and remain below ‘average’ (an index score below 50) overall and across all issues measured. The Albanese Government’s overall performance index is 41, unchanged since a six-point fall in February.
Australians remain more positive about business and industry performance (index score of 53) than any level of government. Even so, more adults say business is heading in the wrong direction (28%) than in the right direction (20%).
For the full May report of True Issues with all the charts across all our tracking measures go here.
For the full True Issues report looking at how the nation responded to the recent Federal Budget go here.
