This Budget was democracy in a glorious little nutshell

DON’T be fooled by naysayers, the 2017 Budget really did deliver for all of us. And for that you can thank the average Australian.

Scott Morrison delivered a great Budget yesterday. But he doesn’t deserve the credit for it. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

HOW good is democracy? It’s magical. The evidence is right there in this year’s Budget.

If you think you see Scott Morrison’s fingerprints in this Budget, you may be mistaken. Perhaps around the edges. The biggest parts of this Budget weren’t made by him at all.

It delivers on Medicare. Higher taxes to fund more spending, A splurge on infrastructure. The NDIS. Banks paying more tax.

These are not the Coalition’s ideological preferences. These are the ideological preferences of the average Australian. We saw the Coalition’s ideological preferences in the 2014-15 Budget, and we saw that they are not good. That was the Budget that included big education cuts, cuts to the ABC and SBS, plus co-payments to see a doctor.

That Budget killed the political careers of Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott. That’s what happens when you forget you operate in a democracy. They had just won the election 90 seats to 55 and thought that gave them space to do some very unpopular things. Nope.

Our democracy has many ways of working. Even though the 2016 election was a long way away, the first polling after that 2014 Budget showed it was a dud. Mr Abbott lost 30 Newspolls in a row, ate an onion and famously got knifed from within his own party.

Tony Abbott during Question Time yesterday. This Budget must leave a sour taste in his mouth. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

It’s a bloody process. But it’s democracy. And it is glorious.

What’s more, the mad ideas from the 2014-15 Budget never even became policy. The Coalition tried to push them through the Senate, but that rabble of weirdos never let the worst bits through. And in this Budget, Scott Morrison finally admitted the 2014-15 dregs were never going to become actual law, and officially gave up on them.

Scott Morrison is just a pipe that democracy flows through. This Budget is made by us. If it’s popular, we deserve the credit for it.

WHEN TOUGH GUYS PLAY KIND

Here’s something I notice way more often than people seem to mention: policies that come from the opposite party than you expect.

Sometimes, for example, it seems to be easier for Labor to pass tax cuts for business. And sometimes the Coalition finds it easier to spend up big and run deficits.

For example, Gough Whitlam - Labor Party hero - cut tariffs, while John Howard - Liberal Party hero - gave away a fortune in middle class welfare.

It’s a weird situation. When political parties play to the script, it gets more political opposition — including from some journalists — than when they stray.

For example, if Labor taxes banks, people who like banks become angry, and people who hate Labor become angry, and often they’re the same people, and so there’s a clear chorus of anger. People who think Labor is terrible read stories that tell them what they want to hear. Talkback radio buys in and you have a clear public message of dissent.

However, if the Coalition taxes banks, those same people who love banks and hate Labor feel vague cognitive dissonance and the anger is rather muted and people don’t talk about it all that much.

A good example of this is in fact the temporary Budget repair levy. This was an extra 2 per cent tax on Australia’s richest people, introduced by Tony Abbott in that 2014-15 Budget. But it was a serious tax. It raised more than $1 billion a year, all from people earning over $180,000.

Yet it is not discussed very much. Labor doesn’t like to talk about it because it makes Tony Abbott look less mean. The Coalition doesn’t like to talk about it either - it is not something their supporters wanted. In the end, nobody talks about it much.

The temporary budget repair levy was temporary, as the name implies. It was always set to expire in 2017 and in this Budget the government has confirmed it will expire. That counts as a 2 per cent tax cut for Australia’s richest people. Because the ‘tax cut’ is being delivered by the party you would expect, we are likely to hear far more about this tax on its way out than we did on its way in. Expect Bill Shorten to make a big deal of it in his Budget reply on Wednesday.

WHICH PARTY IS IN POWER?

In a democracy you don’t always need to chuck out a government to change the government. The threat can be enough.

That means politicians can sometimes do their best work for the country when they are trying to get into government, rather than when they make it into the ministerial suites. They shape policy no matter whether they are “in power” or not.

Labor might be worrying this week that the Coalition has stolen their best ideas. But if they didn’t mind who gets credit, they’d be able to sleep well knowing they helped force that to happen.

But of course, they do care who gets the credit. They want to be in government and they want to be elected next time. And really, that’s what makes democracy work. We harness the lust for power of our most ambitious people, and we turn it to our advantage. Democracy is a thing of beauty and we have seen a glimpse of it this week.

Jason Murphy is an economist. He publishes the blog Thomas The Thinkengine. Follow Jason on Twitter @Jasemurphy