Labor’s track record turns Bill Shorten’s Budget attack into Coalition comedy roast

Bill Shorten had the government benches in stitches when he attempted to attack the Budget and as question after question failed to draw blood, the Labor leader’s habit of wringing his hands together became increasingly energetic, writes Miranda Devine.

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You could tell from Bill Shorten’s busy hands in Question Time that the Opposition’s attack on the Budget wasn’t going well.

As question after question failed to draw blood, Shorten’s strange habit of wringing his hands together under his desk became increasingly energetic.

The worse it got, the more he smiled, and the faster went the hands.

He had the government benches in stitches when he accused them of: “blowing an $80 million black hole in the budget”.

Shadow Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese during Question Time yesterday. Picture: Lukas Coch

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They roared with laughter at the cheek of a former Rudd government minister talking about budget black holes. But he persevered.

“After six years of cuts and chaos, this Budget is nothing but a con-job that has already fallen apart”.

“Which you’d love to inherit” called out a wag from the Coalition backbench.

Boom boom.

The government was in high spirits the day after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg handed down his first budget.

A question on climate change prompted another comedy routine, this time from Prime Minister Minister Scott Morrison, complete with Borat impersonation.

In an odd moment during Question Time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a Borat impersonation following Labor’s Budget attacks. Picture: Lukas Coch

“We won’t force businesses to spend $36 billion purchasing foreign carbon credits … That is the policy the Labor Party announced on Monday. They want carbon credits from Kazakhstan … Some may call this a carbon tax, Mr Speaker. I call it the Borat tax”.

Boom boom.

“I know what Borat would think of the Labor Party’s … carbon trading policies. Velly nice, velly nice”, said the PM, doing Borat’s cheesy double thumbs up.

His troops tittered. But there was deadly intent behind the humour, coming days after Labor’s new climate policy — with its electric cars fantasy and carbon tax 2.0 — landed like an April Fool’s joke.

Morrison and Frydenberg designed the budget to be bulletproof by studding it with defensive policies to pre-empt Labor attacks. A surplus and the first attempt to pay down debt in over a decade wrapped them in the virtue of the Howard years.

“Con job” was Labor’s favourite line.

But, with weeks until the election, the budget’s defensive shield held firm.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Picture: Lukas Coch

Miranda Devine. Picture: Jonathan Ng

While Frydenberg and health minister Greg Hunt spruiked generous budget health measures to ward off a “MediScare” Mark II, the Prime Minister turned Labor’s questions back on them.

Take Anthony Albanese’s attempt to use humour as a weapon. The shadow infrastructure minister asked why the government’s “$200 million promise for Kakadu became Kaka-don’t without a single new cent in the budget. Doesn’t this prove that the budget con job has fallen apart?”

Morrison retorted that the money was indeed in the budget but that Albanese, “despite being here forever, like everyone else on that side of the house has no idea how a budget put together.”

“You’ve never been a treasurer, have you” he sneered across the dispatch box as Albanese sat down.

Then Morrison looked at Shorten, still wringing his hands, and whispered, “He set you up”.

Budget attacks having fallen flat, Shorten tried a question on “racist hate speech”. But it was ruled out of order.

It just wasn’t his day.

Bowen valiantly tried another tack, pointing to Frydenberg as “the third Treasurer I’ve faced. I’m used to the instability … from the other side”.

But since he was Treasurer for all of 83 days at the tail-end of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd fiasco, it was hard for anyone left in the chamber to keep a straight face.