Key budget recommendations include:

• Skilling the workforce by increasing investment in VET through an ambitious new National Skills Agreement which also better targets training to the needs of learners and their employers.
• Extending the Boosting Apprentice Commencement wage subsidy for a further 12 months at a stepped down rate.
• Catching up on lost skilled migration by raising the annual permanent migration cap to 220,000 places in 2022-23 and 2023-24, reverting to 190,000 in 2024-25, and reweighting the skills stream back up to a 70 per cent share.
• Extending visa application charge refunds for working holiday makers and international students.
• Temporarily reverting to four-year visas for all new Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa holders or extending the pathway to permanent residence to new two-year TSS visa holders, with continuation subject to a review.
• Removing occupational skills list eligibility requirements for employer-sponsored visas for higher paid workers.
• Scrapping, or otherwise revamping the Skilling Australians Fund levy so that there is a stronger link between the businesses that pay the levy and the training provided to address skills shortages.
• Encouraging more women back into the workforce and helping them advance through a shared carer paid parental leave bonus that supports sharing of parental responsibilities.
• Making permanent the reduction of red tape measures introduced during COVID-19 such as delivery curfews and retail trading hour restrictions.
• Enhancing the competitiveness of Australian businesses by raising the turnover threshold for the 25 per cent company tax rate to either $250 million, $500 million or $1 billion and switching to a domestic turnover test.
• When fiscal conditions permit, drive a sustained increase in investment in the medium term through either:
  • Applying the lower company tax rate of 25 per cent to all companies, phased through increases to the turnover threshold, or
  • Introducing a broad-based investment allowance of 20 per cent for all companies to provide for more sustained improvements in investment. It could initially be targeted at investment in emerging areas where competition for investment dollars will be strongest such as clean energy and digital technology/software.
• Sending a positive signal to foreign investors by introducing a fast-track approvals lane for regular and trusted clients of FIRB.
• Building up world-class nationally significant industry precincts by establishing a central future industries fund that better targets government support for local industries to develop capabilities, scale up and compete globally.
• Making the most of the significant public infrastructure pipeline by tasking Infrastructure Australia and the state-based infrastructure bodies to coordinate and share information on the timing of procurements and sequencing of projects.
• Accelerating the development of clean energy technology by scaling up funding to CEFC and ARENA to encourage private sector co-investment in untested and emerging clean energy technologies that may not otherwise reach commercial scale.
• Providing productivity payments to states and territories that implement beneficial reforms, including tax and regulatory changes.
• Supporting states that want to progress much needed tax reform such as phasing out stamp duty by providing them with a clear guarantee of no disadvantage in the allocation of GST revenues.

You can read the full budget submission here.