Portfolio — 23 June 2026

Treasurer Jim Chalmers used a busy parliamentary day on 22 June to advance three distinct but reinforcing portfolio fronts: fuel excise relief, capital gains tax reform, and regional banking access.

The centrepiece was the second reading of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Fuel Excise Relief No. 2) Bill 2026, which extends the 16-cent-per-litre fuel excise cut from 1 July to 2 August [TA-260622-house-e61cfd068b50:s062]. The one-month extension saves the average motorist roughly $11 per tank and reduces the heavy-vehicle road-user charge by the same 16 cents per litre — a saving of about $64 on a 400-litre truck tank.

States and territories are sharing the cost of the discount, agreed at National Cabinet. Chalmers framed the measure explicitly as a calibrated, temporary taper tied to the recovery of global fuel markets rather than an open-ended subsidy. The second reading also disclosed the breadth of complementary supply-security commitments sitting alongside the excise cut: a $7.5 billion Fuel and Fertiliser Security Facility, more than 800 million litres of diesel and 150 million litres of jet fuel secured through Export Finance Australia, a $3.2 billion fuel security reserve, new ACCC powers, a $1 billion economic resilience program, $1.1 billion for low-carbon fuel production, and $80 million for EV charger rollout [TA-260622-house-e61cfd068b50:s062].

This supply-security architecture signals that the portfolio is positioning the excise relief within a longer structural response to fuel-market vulnerability rather than as a standalone cost-of-living measure. Chalmers credited the Minister for Climate Change and Energy for her role in the National Cabinet outcome, and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for her contributions to the fuel-security program — cross-portfolio acknowledgements that reflect the breadth of the policy design.

During Question Time, Chalmers reinforced the fuel relief message and simultaneously prosecuted two other significant portfolio positions. On capital gains tax, he stated that the average tax rate on gross capital gains will rise from 19.3% to 21.4% in the medium term under the government's CGT reforms [TA-260622-house-e61cfd068b50:s215], with the discount recalibrated to reflect real rather than nominal gains.

He argued that 98% of active businesses retain access to CGT concessions and carve-outs, with 100% of small businesses receiving a higher turnover threshold [TA-260622-house-e61cfd068b50:s221], and that 99% of agricultural businesses will be eligible for the updated 50% active asset reduction — a concession he noted had drawn praise from the National Farmers' Federation [TA-260622-house-e61cfd068b50:s223].

On regional banking, he announced a 2½-year moratorium on regional bank branch closures preventing any closures before 27 July, citing a 29% decline in branch numbers between 2017 and 2022 [TA-260622-house-e61cfd068b50:s226]. Complementary measures include increased investment in Bank@Post, delivery of a cash-acceptance mandate, and release of draft legislation on a cash distribution regulatory framework.

The density of Chalmers's House activity on this single day — second reading of legislation, plus multiple substantive Question Time answers spanning fuel, tax, and banking — points to a coordinated communication effort across the portfolio's major live instruments. The fuel excise thread runs directly from the second reading into Question Time, with the Treasurer maintaining the same framing of temporary, tapered support in both settings.

The CGT and regional banking positions are substantive in their own right and together broaden the portfolio's cost-of-living narrative beyond fuel prices to asset taxation and access to financial services in regional Australia.