Budget 2019: Will Josh Frydenberg win over the nation?

For much of this week we have been preoccupied with one of the joyless undercards of Australian politics, smothered in what we might call the Ashby-Dickson effect, our very own version of Dunning-Kruger. Now that Hanson has reported the NRMA to ASEAN or something (it’s hard to tell), we might rule a line through it and turn our eyes and minds to the main event.

Parliament resumes next week for a meagre three sitting days. Next Tuesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will get to his feet to deliver his first and probably last budget at least for the foreseeable future.

Since 1994, the delivery of the federal budget has been marked by a red circle around the second Tuesday of May on the political calendar.

It has been brought forward five weeks to accommodate a government that has lost not just the parliament but the political agenda, not to Bill Shorten and Labor but largely due to the grumbling and nay-saying from within its own ranks.

It is worth remembering the House of Representatives has sat for just 34 days of the 230 that have elapsed since Scott Morrison became Prime Minister. Nice work if you can get it. If we are to assess the productivity of our federal MPs simply by the days they bother to turn up, they would be down in the nether regions of the scale next the band members of Metallica popping into a recording studio every other month to continue the torturous work on their latest album.

After the seat of Wentworth was lost to the crossbench, the government knew it ran the risk of losing the parliament. Not so much, perhaps, that they would be rolled on the floor by a vote on the confidence it enjoyed or did not and an election called on a date not of their choosing, but more generally that every sitting day would veer into a burgeoning sense of chaos with the government losing control of the procedural and legislative agenda.

All budgets are political with the usual cycle of events in the life of a parliament being a tough budget in the government’s first year in power with a general softening in the second and by the time the third year comes around, the government of the day is delivering a dump truck full of money up to your house.

The circumstances of Frydenberg’s budget are virtually unique and contain the Morrison government’s last desperate attempt to control the agenda and make up ground on Labor. Indeed, it may be so political in nature that the old standard headline, ‘Beer, Cigs Up” may be amended to include the much happier headline, well, to me anyway, of ‘Beer, Cigs Free.”

In the government’s more sordid of dreams, the budget might deliver an unlikely victory but in reality, it is more likely to be a furniture saving exercise, to reduce the size of the loss from a projected 18-22 seats according to aggregated Newspoll surveys to a Labor majority than can be more comfortably knocked off at a subsequent election.

We can safely predict the budget will contain three main themes — the first that the Morrison Government is a master of economic management and it and only it can deliver surpluses. The second, a derisive spendathon in an attempt to win voters back. The third is possibly even more cynical, creating various barely concealed nightmares down the track for their opponents.

We are told Frydenberg has a war chest — an ugly piece of political vernacular at the best of times — as only the chest belongs to the government. The contents are yours and mine. What is in the war chest is rumoured to be around $70 billion. Obviously, that is not loose change that fell down the back of the sofa but there is no mistaking that huge wad of cash exists only because Treasury severely underestimated company and PAYE payments, most of the latter coming from a wallop to taxpayers suffering the financial indignity of bracket creep.

But it does provide the treasurer to make some announcements that are both economically sound and politically engaging. One headline element of the Frydenberg Budget might include a ‘cheque in the mail’ hand out to old age pensioners in the order of a gorilla or so it has been whispered.

For those uncertain of the nomenclature where Australian colloquialisms exchange arboreal primates for dollar figures, a gorilla is a $1000, a monkey $500. Thus, the government might dispatch a payment to OAP’s in the range of a gorilla or a gorilla and a monkey or maybe a monkey, three marmosets and a lemur. Or possibly a gorilla and a mandrill less four gibbons. Anyway, you get the picture.

Simian references aside, this form of spending, famously referred to by former Treasurer Joe Hockey during the Rudd-Swan GFC response as a “cash splash”, might be viewed cynically by the electorate at large but politically there is a lot of upside. Those on the pension are battling away and a few extra dollars will be a Godsend. Many will spend the dough quickly, giving a kick to the retail sector. There are few administrative costs, no cheques in the mail these days. OAPs loom large on the Centrelink matrix and beyond the cost of the payment itself, it is a matter of pressing a few buttons.

The Coalition’s support among those in the 65 years of age or older demographic, is neck and neck with Labor where the Coalition normally leads by the length of the straight. That is astonishing given Labor’s whack on self-funded retirees.

The Coalition needs to drag that support back. How would Shorten and Labor counter a one- off payment? If past performance is anything to go by, it would be struck mute for a day or so and then offer meek agreement.

The more problematic issue for the Treasurer is tax cuts across the board for several reasons. The mood of the electorate in recent times is more interested in service delivery than a $10 or $15 a week, large Quarter Pounder meal tax cut.

The other approach is to announce investment in education, health and transport infrastructure but it is also fraught as there is considerable lag between announcement and the turning of soil. The Morrison government does not have time on its side.

The reality is the Morrison government will deliver a budget filled with spending promises it is not likely to have to keep.

Therein lies the other tactical ploy of the budget — to leave so many landmines in the budget that in government, Labor will be faced with making unpopular cuts or lose control of spending. Never mind how ugly the politics might be. The Labor Party is a past master at the planting of surreptitious budgetary explosives. Depressingly, both major parties do it. When faced with a choice between the national interest and their own, the majors don’t spend a lot of time fretting on the moral dimensions.

Frydenberg’s challenge is to get the balance between responsible spending and sensible politics. The Morrison government may well beyond saving but this is its last chance at a recovery.

This column was first published in The Australian on 29 March 2019