Treasurer Jim Chalmers' wife Laura has abandoned her traditional designer wardrobe for Budget night, opting instead for a $119 cost-of-living-crisis-inspired dress from Zara. Ms Chalmers faced backlash in previous years for wearing outfits worth nearly $2000 to her husband's Budget speeches, which often address families struggling to make ends meet.
Previous Criticism
Last year, she toned it down and arrived at Parliament House in a modest black dress worth $329.95 by Melbourne-based fashion designer Mossman. This year, the former political adviser turned magazine editor has gone a step further by donning an even more affordable brown midi dress from fast fashion retailer Zara.
As her husband told Australians about sweeping changes to property rules to make the tax system fairer, Ms Chalmers sat in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night wearing a polyester blend dress with gold buttons and a matching belt. The retailer's description boasts 'front patch pockets with flaps, a belt in the same fabric with a metal buckle and gold buttons, and a front vent at the hem'. Instead of the recommended 'strappy heeled sandals', Ms Chalmers opted for nude stilettos.
2024 Outfit Controversy
Back in 2024, Ms Chalmers attracted heavy criticism for wearing an $899 yellow Carla Zampatti dress and a matching $999 jacket. The outfit, which cost the equivalent of a week's wages for many Australians, sparked anger, with one online commenter branding it 'top tier tone deaf'. Two months later, at the Midwinter Ball in Canberra, she wore a powder blue Rebecca Vallance gown worth $1,500.
Full-time workers in Australia earn an average wage of $1,889 per week, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The average salary is $98,218, while the median annual salary is $67,600.
Budget Speech Changes
During his Budget speech on Tuesday night, Chalmers announced mass tax changes to help young people get ahead. Negative gearing has been wound back to only include new builds, and capital gains tax discounts have been reduced. Negative gearing allows investors to offset a loss-making property against other income, such as wages, reducing taxable income and potentially pushing them into a lower tax bracket. Chalmers said the changes would deliver a 'fairer tax system for workers, first home buyers and future generations' by 'helping rebalance a system which is more generous to assets than it is to labour'.
The benefits of negative gearing have overwhelmingly gone to high-income earners who buy investment properties and run them at a loss to lower their tax rate. The Albanese government says this has been a major contributor to generational inequality.
Laura Chalmers' Background
Ms Chalmers, formerly known as Laura Anderson, worked as a press secretary for former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong before returning to journalism. She became national editor-in-chief for News Corp's Saturday Weekend Magazines in November 2021, just after returning from maternity leave, a position she still holds according to her LinkedIn profile.
She began her career as state political reporter for Adelaide's Advertiser from January 2003 to May 2006, then spent almost three years in Canberra as the Advertiser's federal political reporter before working for Ms Wong and later Ms Gillard. Her political career ended in July 2013 when Kevin Rudd deposed Ms Gillard in an internal Labor stoush.
She and Dr Chalmers married in March 2013, just two days after a previous Labor leadership spill by Simon Crean, which Ms Gillard survived. The then PM attended the wedding, where she and then Treasurer Wayne Swan were given a specially set-aside room to form a new ministry. The seating plan at the reception had to be changed at the last minute to keep warring Labor operatives apart, placing Julia Gillard beside Dr Chalmers' mother Carol. He later played down the disruption, saying 'from our point of view, it wasn't that unusual, to be honest.' The couple have three children: Jack, Annabel, and Leo.
