Treasurer Jim Chalmers' wife Laura has ditched her traditional designer wardrobe for Budget night, and instead turned up in a $119 cost of living crisis-inspired dress from Zara.

Ms Chalmers has been slammed in previous years for being 'tone deaf' by wearing outfits worth almost $2000 to her husband's Budget speeches, which usually address families struggling to make ends meet.

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 appears to have gone a step further by donning an even more affordable brown midi dress from fast fashion retailer, Zara.

As her husband told Australians about how sweeping changes to property rules would make the tax system fairer, Ms Chalmers sat in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night wearing a polyester blend with gold buttons and a matching belt.

The description from the retailer boasts that it features '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'.

Rather than completing the look with 'strappy heeled sandals', as advised on the website, Ms Chalmers opted for nude stilettos.

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, Ms Chalmers wore a powder blue Rebecca Vallance gown worth a whopping $1,500. 

Full-time workers in Australia earn an average wage of $1,889 per week, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

An average salary is $98,218 while the median annual salary is $67,600.

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. This reduces the owner's taxable income, sometimes 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 bring down their tax rate.

The Albanese government says this has been a major contribution to generational inequality.

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 moving back to her first love, journalism.

Her successful career led to her becoming the national editor-in-chief for News Corp's Saturday Weekend Magazines in November 2021, just after returning from maternity leave.

It is a position she still holds, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Ms Chalmers cut her teeth in politics as the state political reporter for her hometown Adelaide's Advertiser newspaper from January 2003 to May 2006.

She 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 came to an abrupt end in July 2013 when Kevin Rudd deposed Ms Gillard in an internal Labor stoush and replaced her as prime minister.

She and Dr Chalmers had married in March 2013 just two days after a previous Labor leadership spill - by Simon Crean - which Ms Gillard had 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.