In a special podcast, NAB Chief Economist Alan Oster spoke with colleague and fellow economist Phin Ziebell about what we might see in Tuesday night’s Federal Budget.

Mr Oster said that in addition to the already announced measures like changes to the childcare subsidy and $10 billion in additional spending on road and rail, he expects to see further support for business investment as well as funding to support the government’s ambition to drive unemployment below 5 per cent.

He also predicted Australia’s GDP to return to 1 per cent growth to the year ending June this year, describing this as “amazing”, given his previous expectations that it would contract by 2 per cent. NAB Economics expects GDP to grow by 4.2 per cent in 2021/22 and 2.5 per cent in 2022/23.

Mr Oster also discussed the latest NAB Monthly Business Survey, which was released on Monday May 10 and is one of the strongest surveys in recent memory.

You can listen to the conversation here: Alan Oster’s 2021 Federal Budget Preview by NAB Economics | Free Listening on SoundCloud