Tim Blair: This is what Scott Morrison’s 2017 Budget speech is really saying...

Anti-globalisation one minute, upbeat on the global economic outlook the next. TIM BLAIR looks behind the words of Scott Morrison’s speech.

National debt

SCO-MO: For many years now, as our economy has gone through major changes, Australians have had to dig deep to keep our economy on the right track

BLAIR SAYS... In fact, our economy has only gone through one major change – Labor’s massive spending from 2007 to 2013. Apart from that, and the Coalition’s failure to address Labor’s debt, we’d be looking mighty fine. And despite Australians digging ever deeper, we now have debt pushing towards $500 billion. Whose fault might that be?

Who’s fault? Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) and Australian Opposition Leader Bill Shorten shake hands as they arrive for early morning TV interviews outside Parliament House on Wednesday. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

Anti-Globalisation

SCO-MO: Not all Australians have shared in this hard won growth. Many remain frustrated at not getting ahead. This is especially true in areas where technological change, globalisation and the end of the mining investment boom has had a significant impact.

BLAIR SAYS... It worked for Brexit and it worked for Donald Trump, so we’re now all aboard the smashglobalisation express, headed straight for One Nation station.

Getting on the smashglobalisation express. Pro-Brexit supporters hold up placards as they demonstrate outside Downing street in central London on July 13, 2016. Picture: Niklas Hallen.

Commodities

SCO-MO: Given commodity prices continue to be volatile, we have maintained conservative assumptions.

BLAIR SAYS... And that’s just the only element of conservatism remaining in this government. We’re now down to a few lonely assumptions in the export price for bauxite.

Taking a conservative outlook on commodity prices...Picture: Mark Ralston

Focus on Skills

We must skill more Australians … Over the next four years, $1.2 billion will be raised from this levy that will contribute to a new Commonwealth-State Skilling Australians Fund.

BLAIR SAYS... Now that “skill” is a verb, our very own government is just one letter away from sounding like an Islamic State propaganda video.

A warning about your grammar Sco-Mo.

Government’s Role

SCO-MO: We cannot agree with those who say there is nothing the government can do.

BLAIR SAYS... Please finish that sentence, Mr Morrison: “… properly”. By the way, this line officially erases any significant philosophical difference between Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition and Bill Shorten’s Labor. There were absolutely zero people on the opposition benches last night who say there is nothing the government can do. If only they did far less.

Scott Morrison in the budget lockup at Parliament House on Tuesday. Picture: Stefan Postles

Banks

SCO-MO: We are establishing a simpler, more accessible and more affordable one-stop shop for Australians to resolve their disputes … to be known as the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

BLAIR SAYS... We already have Australian Financial Complaints Authorities. They’re called spouses. Although they typically escalate disputes rather than resolve them.

Why do we need an Australian Financial Complaints Authority when we have spouses?

The future

SCO-MO: We cannot succumb to the laziness that thinks growth will take care of itself.

BLAIR SAYS... We must also not succumb to Barack Obama Autobiography Syndrome, where a sentence still means basically nothing no matter how it is arranged. Scott Morrison’s “laziness and growth” is his version of Obama’s “audacity of hope”.

Scott Morrison’s “laziness and growth”: Just like Obama’s “audacity of hope”, it basically means nothing. Picture: Alex Brandon

Pro-globalisation

SCO-MO: The signs of an improving global economy are there to see … the global economic outlook is improving … our export trade deals are bearing fruit.

BLAIR SAYS... For a budget speech that began with a swipe at globalisation, things thereafter sure took a weird turn. Pauline will not be amused.

One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson leaves the Senate Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra ON Tuesday.

Education

SCO-MO: In higher education, we are launching a fairer system, with students asked to pay a bit more.

BLAIR SAYS... Every student activist in the land will now be working hard to come up with something negative that rhymes with bit. Unfair hit? Doesn’t fit? Profoundly complicit? Think deeply, children. The next anti-Simon Birmingham demonstration depends on your clever wordplay.

Sco-Mo says it’s a fairer higher education system...with students asked to “pay a bit more”. Picture: Aaron Francis

And in conclusion

SCO-MO: We will no longer accept, as an excuse from repeat offenders, that the reason they could not meet their mutual obligation requirements was because they were drunk or drug-affected.

BLAIR SAYS…That’s OK. Everyone makes mistakes. But lay off the tequila the next time you’re putting a budget together, OK?

Nursing a post-Budget hangover?

Originally published as Tim Blair: This is what Scott Morrison’s 2017 Budget speech is really saying...