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The issues facing Australians are laid bare in cabinet documents released by the National Archives of Australia (NAA) on Wednesday, and eerily similar to those critical in the upcoming 2025 election.
With 242 documents released, SBS News looked back at government decisions in 2004 that foreshadowed some of the major pressures heading into the next election.
Cabinet rules out changing capital gains to help first-home buyers
However, a submission from Howard and then-treasurer Peter Costello rejected the idea that changes to capital gains tax affected property values.
A graph showing how the average Australian property prices have increased over 20 years. Source: SBS News
“It is not clear that the change in capital gains taxation in 1999 would have had a large impact on house prices,” the submission said.
The Productivity Commission also backed this change, noting that the tax paid when transferring property ownership from one individual to another was “relatively inefficient”.
Twenty years on, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil continues calls for states to axe stamp duty and replace it with a land tax.
According to ABS data, average weekly wages for Australian workers have doubled since 2004. Source: SBS News
However, states and territories have largely rejected the changes due to the large revenue stream. The ACT is the only jurisdiction to have slowly reduced stamp duty.
“But house prices are even more of a problem now than they were then.”
Government rejects grocery conduct changes
However, the 2004 cabinet papers reveal the government failed to address similar pressures at the checkout twenty years earlier.
It instead committed to “industry self-regulation to address marketplace problems”, the papers reveal.
A graphic showing the prices of everyday goods including bread, petrol and milk in 2004. Source: SBS News
Howard government minister Joe Hockey wrote in a submission: “Mandating the code on the basis of anecdotal evidence risks exposing the government to criticism of unnecessary regulation and imposing associated compliance costs on an industry which is largely working well.”
Twenty years on, the effects of the voluntary code have devastated farmers, with 30 per cent of vegetable and fruit growers considering leaving the industry last year, according to a study by peak horticulture industry body, AusVeg.
— With additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press.
