David Speers: Voters say they want a surplus, but they care about their hip pocket
Voters say they want a surplus, but would clearly prefer to see their own household finances improve rather than the nation’s balance sheet. Wages are barely growing, house prices are falling and congestion is building up. Voters want some help.
A senior cabinet minister asked his electorate office this week to go back over all the recent calls, letters and emails from constituents and find out how many were concerned about the state of the Budget and keen to see a return to surplus. The answer, unsurprisingly, was zero.
The point of the exercise was to confirm that yes, while voters want the Budget fixed, it’s not exactly a front of mind issue and unlikely to win back those who have deserted the Liberal Party in anger.
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The broader concern, on the part of this Minister at least, is that while Liberal Party infighting may have died down, Scott Morrison still isn’t talking about the things voters are interested in. For all his extraordinary energy and activity, he’s yet to grab the attention of a disengaged, disillusioned electorate.
Consider the amount of activity in less than four months as Prime Minister. Morrison has been as busy as a last-minute Christmas shopper. Some of it has been about removing barnacles, some has been about putting his own stamp on the Government. Clearly not all of it has been popular.
Under pressure from Labor, he’s boosted school and health funding, ditched an increase in the pension access age and announced plans for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission.
Under pressure from the Right of his own party, he’s dumped the National Energy Guarantee, flagged a (slight) reduction in migration, announced plans for a Religious Discrimination Act and will today reveal whether Australia is shifting its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Morrison has driven the so-called “Pacific pivot” foreign policy shift, hosted a drought summit, announced a Royal Commission into the Aged Care sector, fast-tracked small business tax cuts, changed the Liberal Party’s leadership rules and even dealt with a strawberry contamination crisis.
He’s squeezed in three international summits and survived an increasingly difficult parliament where the government has fallen further into minority following a by-election loss in Wentworth and the defection of Julia Banks to the cross bench.
No one can accuse Morrison of being idle. It’s arguably been too much activity for voters to digest. In fairness, this isn’t entirely Morrison’s fault. He took the job at a point of crisis for the Liberal Party and inherited an in-tray of unresolved problems, which he’s been working to fix by the end of the year.
Now it’s time to consider the election campaign proper.
The government is right to make a big deal out of returning the budget to surplus for the first time in more than a decade.
It’s been a long and difficult road to this point, beginning with the politically disastrous 2014 Abbott-Hockey Budget.
No one, however, thinks that finally achieving a surplus will be enough to save the Coalition’s skin.
Voters say they want a surplus, but would clearly prefer to see their own household finances improve rather than the nation’s balance sheet. Wages are barely growing, house prices are falling and congestion is building up. Voters want some help.
Some in the government would rather focus on a bold “nation building” plan than a surplus. They point to the success of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who took a major infrastructure plan to last month’s election and won in a landslide.
Others reckon bigger tax cuts are the only way to jolt the government’s fortunes back to life.
In fairness, the government is already committed to income tax cuts and big infrastructure projects like inland rail, the Melbourne Airport rail link and the second Sydney airport. Voters, however, aren’t rewarding the Coalition for any of this. The polls still suggest a wipe-out is coming.
There’s no chance the government will change course on its fiscal strategy now. Abandoning the surplus would be ridiculous and leave Morrison and Josh Frydenberg looking like Wayne Swan: over-promising on the surplus and then failing to deliver. They simply won’t do it.
Despite the polls, the Prime Minister and Treasurer remain upbeat about the government’s election prospects. They believe doubts are growing about Bill Shorten’s plans on negative gearing, franking credits and refugees.
They believe a “substantial” Budget surplus will convince the electorate they know what they’re doing. The mid-year Budget update on Monday will point to this improvement in the bottom line.
If the plan is to keep the debate on the economy, it was a curious move this week to open new debates about whether we really have a problem with religious discrimination and government corruption.
These were issues Morrison inherited and had to finalise, but the strong view among his colleagues, particularly those in marginal seats, is that they don’t want to be dwelling on this stuff in the new year.
They want a strong budget with enough left over to pay for the things voters need. The sort of things voters actually raise when they call their local MP.
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