Anthony Albanese came to office promising Australians a better future.

Four years later, millions of households are entitled to ask a simple question: better for whom?

Inflation is again running ahead of wage growth. Housing costs are climbing. Electricity prices have surged. The Commonwealth’s tax take continues to expand, while a tax cut worth a maximum of about $5.15 a week is promoted as meaningful relief.

At the same time, Australia added almost 1.3 million people through net overseas migration across three financial years, despite an acute housing shortage and infrastructure that was already struggling to keep pace with population growth.

The electricity system is undergoing a capital-intensive reconstruction in pursuit of Labor’s renewable energy targets, with taxpayers, consumers and government-backed schemes all playing a role in financing the transition.

And the return of Australian women and children linked to Islamic State fighters has again raised difficult questions about security, transparency and how much Australians are entitled to know about the risks being managed in their own country.

Albanese did not create every problem Australia faces.

Housing shortages predate his government. Energy infrastructure was ageing before Labor returned to office. Australia’s tax system has accumulated distortions over decades. The legal and security problems surrounding citizens who travelled to Islamic State territory began years ago.

But governments eventually own the decisions they make.

Labor has now been in power since May 2022.

The results deserve to be judged against the promises.

Prices are rising faster than wages

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data makes the cost-of-living problem difficult to dismiss.

Consumer prices rose 4.0 per cent in the 12 months to May 2026.

Annual wage growth, measured by the Wage Price Index, was 3.3 per cent in the March quarter.

The two measures cover different periods and should not be presented as a perfect like-for-like comparison.

But the direction is clear.

Prices are again increasing faster than the latest annual measure of wages.

Housing costs rose 6.5 per cent over the year to May.

Electricity increased 21.1 per cent.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages rose 3.3 per cent.

Transport increased 3.3 per cent.

Rents were 3.6 per cent higher.

These are not obscure components of an economic index.

They are the costs Australians encounter every week.

A household can postpone buying a television.

It cannot indefinitely postpone paying rent.

A family can cancel a holiday.

It still needs food, electricity and transport.

This is why headline arguments about aggregate economic growth often fail to connect with voters.

People experience the economy through what remains in their bank account after essential bills are paid.

If wages rise by 3.3 per cent while major household costs climb more quickly, a worker can receive a pay rise and still feel poorer.

That is the economic reality confronting the Albanese government.

A tax cut worth a maximum of about $5.15 a week

Labor’s 2026–27 cost-of-living package includes another income tax cut.

From July 1, the tax rate applying to taxable income between $18,201 and $45,000 fell from 16 per cent to 15 per cent.

The government says every Australian taxpayer will receive a tax cut of up to $268 in 2026–27 compared with the 2024–25 tax settings.

That maximum works out at approximately $5.15 a week.

Another reduction is scheduled from July 2027, when the rate is due to fall to 14 per cent.

A tax cut is still a tax cut.

Workers are better off receiving $268 than not receiving it.

But governments should not be surprised when Australians compare the relief with the bills arriving at their homes.

An extra $5.15 a week can disappear in a single supermarket visit.

It can be consumed by an increase in insurance.

It can vanish into rent, mortgage interest, fuel or an electricity bill.

The political problem becomes sharper when viewed against the scale of Commonwealth revenue.

The 2026–27 Budget estimates the tax-to-GDP ratio at 23.8 per cent.

The government argues it is banking tax receipt upgrades, improving the budget position and creating room to return bracket creep in future budgets.

That is the Treasury argument.

The household argument is more immediate.

Inflation pushes nominal incomes higher.

Workers can move through tax thresholds even when the real purchasing power of their wages has not improved by the same amount.

Governments collect more revenue.

Then a portion is returned through a tax adjustment and presented as relief.

For Australians whose essential expenses have increased by hundreds or thousands of dollars, $268 is unlikely to feel transformative.

Australians were promised cheaper energy

Few issues better illustrate the gap between political promises and household experience than electricity.

Labor went to the 2022 election with a promise that its Powering Australia plan would reduce household power bills by $275 by 2025.

Instead, the latest ABS data shows electricity prices were 21.1 per cent higher over the year to May 2026.

There is an important statistical complication.

The ABS says electricity prices would have risen by 3.9 per cent over the year without the impact of government rebate changes.

As rebates are introduced, extended or expire, measured electricity inflation can move sharply.

That does not make the household bill imaginary.

It exposes the difficulty of using temporary rebates to demonstrate that the underlying energy system has become permanently cheaper.

A rebate shifts part of the cost to government.

Government money comes from taxation, borrowing or reduced spending elsewhere.

The bill may disappear from one column while remaining elsewhere in the national accounts.

Meanwhile, Australia’s electricity network is undergoing an enormous physical transition.

Coal generators are ageing and scheduled to leave the system.

New wind and solar projects must be built.

Storage is required to move electricity across time.

Transmission infrastructure is needed to connect new generation zones with population centres.

System security must be maintained when wind and solar output changes.

Backup and dispatchable capacity remain necessary.

None of this infrastructure is free.

The Albanese government’s Capacity Investment Scheme explicitly provides a long-term revenue safety net to reduce financial risk for investors in renewable generation and clean dispatchable capacity such as batteries.

The government says this support is necessary to accelerate investment and ensure replacement capacity is built.

That may be the policy justification.

But it is still government-backed risk protection.

Developers invest capital.

Banks provide finance.

Contractors build projects.

Transmission businesses construct regulated assets.

Investors expect returns.

Consumers and taxpayers ultimately exist at the end of the financial chain.

The honest energy debate is therefore not whether Australia needs new infrastructure.

It plainly does.

The question is whether the transition has been sequenced and managed in a way that protects affordability and reliability while old generation exits.

Recent difficulties in the wind sector demonstrate that announcing targets is easier than delivering physical projects.

Developers are confronting higher costs and project delays, while the Capacity Investment Scheme has been expanded to accelerate construction.

Australians were promised cheaper power.

They are entitled to judge the government by their bills, not its targets.

Almost 1.3 million added through net overseas migration in three years

The scale of Australia’s post-pandemic migration surge is equally difficult to ignore.

Official ABS data shows net overseas migration added 536,000 people in 2022–23.

Another 446,000 were added in 2023–24.

The figure fell to 306,000 in 2024–25.

Combined, that is approximately 1.288 million people added through net overseas migration across three financial years.

Migration is now falling from its extraordinary peak.

That matters and should be acknowledged.

But a reduction after a historic surge does not erase the consequences of the surge.

Every person needs somewhere to live.

Population growth creates demand immediately.

Housing supply does not respond immediately.

A new migrant can arrive at Sydney Airport today and enter the rental market tomorrow.

A new apartment development may take years to finance, approve and construct.

A new suburb requires roads, electricity, water, schools, health services and public transport.

Australia entered the migration surge with housing problems already deeply established.

Rental markets were tight.

Construction costs were rising.

Builders were failing.

Planning systems were slow.

Major cities were already dealing with congestion.

Labor then presided over population growth that ran far ahead of new housing supply.

Migration did not create every element of the housing crisis.

Decades of planning failures, tax settings, land constraints and insufficient construction all matter.

But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that adding almost 1.3 million people through net overseas migration in three years had no effect on demand.

The question should never have been whether migrants are good or bad people.

That framing allows politicians to avoid the real policy issue.

The question is capacity.

How many additional people can Australia accommodate without worsening shortages for the people already here and the new arrivals themselves?

If housing construction cannot keep pace with population growth, migration policy should adjust.

If hospitals are overloaded, infrastructure should be part of the calculation.

If schools and transport networks are under pressure, governments should know the capacity before setting population policy.

Calling every demand for lower migration intolerant is not an answer.

A government has an obligation to match population growth with the country’s physical ability to absorb it.

On that measure, the Albanese years deserve far more scrutiny.

The ISIS-linked returns exposed another transparency problem

National security has created a different but equally difficult test for the government.

In May, groups of Australian women and children linked to former Islamic State fighters returned from camps in Syria.

The facts require careful handling.

Children cannot be held responsible for decisions made by adults.

Association with an Islamic State fighter does not itself establish that a woman committed a criminal offence.

Australian citizens also have legal rights that governments cannot simply ignore because a case is politically difficult.

But those principles do not remove the public interest in transparency and security.

A second group of six women and 13 children returned to Melbourne and Sydney in late May.

No arrests were announced on their arrival.

That followed an earlier group of four women and nine children returning in May.

Three women from the earlier cohort were arrested and faced serious charges, including terrorism and slavery-related allegations.

Those cases remain subject to the courts and the allegations must be proved.

The fact that charges were laid demonstrates why public concern cannot simply be dismissed as hysteria.

These are complex national security cases involving people who spent years in territory controlled by one of the world’s most brutal terrorist organisations.

Australians are entitled to ask what assessments were conducted.

They are entitled to ask what surveillance is legally available.

They are entitled to know whether passports, temporary exclusion orders or control mechanisms were considered.

They are entitled to understand which agencies carry responsibility when a person is not charged but remains a potential security concern.

Operational intelligence cannot all be made public.

No serious government should reveal surveillance methods or compromise an active investigation merely to satisfy a television interview.

But “national security” cannot become a blanket phrase used to avoid explaining policy.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has taken a much harder public line in recent days over 13 Australian men detained in Iraq and suspected of ISIS links.

Burke said the government would not “lift a finger” to assist their return and would use every legal power available to keep them away for longer.

He also acknowledged the legal reality that Australian citizens cannot necessarily be permanently excluded from their own country.

That is precisely why Australia needs clear laws, strong agencies and honest public explanations.

The public does not need theatre.

It needs confidence that difficult cases are being managed with security placed ahead of political embarrassment.

International commitments do not remove democratic accountability

The Albanese government is also deeply committed to international climate, health and diplomatic frameworks.

Australia is a member of the United Nations.

It participates in the World Health Organization.

Australian ministers, officials and business leaders engage with international forums and institutions.

None of those organisations formally governs Australia.

The Australian Parliament makes Australian law.

Australian governments remain accountable to Australian voters.

That distinction should never become blurred.

International cooperation can be valuable.

Pandemics cross borders.

Trade is global.

Military alliances require cooperation.

Climate policy is negotiated internationally because emissions are not contained by national boundaries.

But international consensus is not a substitute for domestic democratic consent.

If a global target requires Australians to finance major changes to their energy system, the government must explain the cost honestly.

If an international health framework affects domestic preparedness or regulation, Parliament and the public should understand the implications.

If global policy ambitions create costs for farmers, industry or households, Australians have a right to question the trade-offs without being treated as morally defective.

A sovereign government can cooperate internationally while still placing the interests of its own citizens first.

In fact, that is its job.

Albanese owns the choices made since 2022

It would be unfair to blame Anthony Albanese for every mortgage repayment, every electricity increase or every unavailable rental property.

Prime ministers do not personally set supermarket prices.

The Reserve Bank determines the cash rate independently.

State governments control much of the planning system.

Global commodity markets affect energy costs.

Wars and international disruptions move fuel prices.

Economic outcomes are always more complicated than a political slogan.

But complexity cannot become an excuse for avoiding accountability.

Albanese’s government made choices.

It allowed net overseas migration to reach 536,000 in one financial year and 446,000 the next while Australia was already in a housing shortage.

It pursued an 82 per cent renewable electricity target for 2030 and expanded government revenue underwriting to accelerate investment in new generation and storage.

It used temporary electricity rebates while underlying questions about system costs remained unresolved.

It is promoting a tax cut worth a maximum of $268 this financial year while inflation is running at 4.0 per cent and wage growth is 3.3 per cent on the latest available annual measures.

It has been forced to manage the return of Australians linked to Islamic State families while explaining the limits of government power and the work of intelligence agencies.

These are government decisions and government responsibilities.

The ultimate test is not whether Labor can produce a fact sheet defending each policy individually.

It is whether Australians believe their country is becoming easier to live in.

Can a young worker see a realistic path to home ownership?

Can a family pay the electricity bill without needing a temporary government rebate to disguise the pressure?

Can wages keep ahead of prices?

Can population growth be matched with housing and infrastructure?

Can taxpayers see value for the extraordinary amount of money collected in Canberra?

Can Australians trust the government to be candid about national security risks?

Can international commitments be pursued without treating domestic dissent as an inconvenience?

Those are not fringe questions.

They are the questions on which governments eventually lose elections.

Anthony Albanese promised a better future.

The latest numbers show inflation at 4.0 per cent, ahead of annual wage growth of 3.3 per cent.

Electricity prices are 21.1 per cent higher over the year, with rebate changes contributing heavily to the measured surge.

Almost 1.3 million people were added through net overseas migration across three financial years.

The government’s new tax cut is worth a maximum of about $5.15 a week in 2026–27.

Australia is rebuilding its electricity system through a mixture of private capital, regulated infrastructure and government-backed investment mechanisms.

Security agencies are managing Australians returning after years connected to families in Islamic State territory.

Labor can explain each statistic.

It can point to falling migration.

It can point to tax cuts.

It can point to renewable investment.

It can point to the work of the AFP and ASIO.

It can point to a global economy that no Australian prime minister controls.

But Australians are entitled to judge the combined result.

They work harder and see less purchasing power left after essential bills.

Home ownership remains beyond the reach of too many young people.

Renters compete in markets strained by years of inadequate supply and rapid population growth.

Households were promised cheaper electricity and remain exposed to a system whose transition costs are only beginning to be fully understood.

The Albanese government did not create every problem.

After four years in office, however, it can no longer behave as though it merely inherited Australia.

It governs Australia.

And the numbers are now part of its record.