NT Budget analysis: Gunner walks like the WA Premier, acts like ScoMo but delivers a bland budget for the broke

FIRST-TIME Treasurer Michael Gunner, who tries to look like Australia’s most popular Premier Mark McGowan and act like PM Scott Morrison, will have to spruik a budget of frugality, discipline and the hard truth that the Territory is broke.

FOR a chief minister who tries to look like Australia’s most popular premier, ­Western Australia’s Mark Mc­Gowan, and act like Scott Morrison, Michael Gunner’s pandemic-era budget couldn’t boast of a bounteous resource sector or throw cash at the neediest sections of the Territory’s economy.

Instead, the first-time Treasurer will have to spruik a budget of frugality, discip­line and the hard truth that the Territory is broke.

MORE ON THE NT BUDGET:

Who are the Winners and who are the Losers out of NT Budget 2020/21

NT Budget: Gunner Govt spent over $600k setting up COVID operations centre at the Peter McAulay Centre

Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s first budget speech as Treasurer

The federal government could abandon surplus goals, spill red ink across its ledger and splash cash far and wide on fast-tracked tax cuts and generous stimulus measures, something the Northern Territory cannot do considering it’s been so deep in the red for so long that no one really knows what a wallet without moths looks like.

For Territorians who don’t own a small business and are fortunate enough to still have a job in a pandemic-battered economy, the NT’s latest budget is as interesting as a slice of white bread — sans butter, because we don’t have money for that.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison meets with Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner at Kirribilli House in Sydney, on Friday, October 16, 2020. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts via NCA NewsWire

The government, yelling out until it is hoarse for us to be thankful we haven’t died from COVID-19, will instead stock the pantries of small businesses and give them extra food stamps if they hire an unemployed Territorian.

Public servants who were told to re-elect a Gunner government on unsubstantiated claims they would lose their jobs under the CLP have been served a plate of cold brussels sprouts and two options.

Eat this and you won’t starve, don’t eat it and who knows where your next meal will come from.

And no, you can’t wash it down with a beer you bought from Dan Murphy’s because there still isn’t one.

OFFER EXTENDED: Amazing NT News subscription offer: Read everything for $1

It’s dressed up like a budget that’s meant to instil hope in Territorians that the situation will get better from here but, at its heart, comes across as wartime-era rationing that will tide us over until the clouds part, at some indistinct point, to deliver­ sunshine.

Though considering the state of the NT’s economy and bank account even before­ the pandemic, is there really anything else we could’ve done?