Is Anthony Albanese setting a tax trap for Peter Dutton?

Anthony Albanese . Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

One politician’s broken promise is another’s change of mind.

That’s one way Prime Minister Albanese will spin the predicament he has created for himself.

The stage three tax cuts promised as locked in by then opposition leader Albanese during the last federal election campaign have now been restructured. The same quantum of money will be handed out but it will be redirected from what had been promised.

As the opposition Treasury spokesman has said, the Albanese government has perpetrated “the mother of all broken promises”. So, prepare for the mother of all spin in reply.

This is arguably the seminal moment for the government. How the tax cuts land among voters will in large part determine the outcome of the next federal election.

Kites have been flown. Dogs wagged. Dead cats bounced. And quite probably opponents will be wedged.

How far does spin go in the days of 24/7 news cycles and the ubiquity of social media? The short answer is, a long way and it favours governments in power in the traditional business of messaging and communications through mainstream media.

The rise of social media merely permits politicians to tell their stories without scrutiny. Walking dogs, making curries, having a beer at the footy all posted on ­social media in a brave effort to look like normal people.

The tax cut restructure is a long way from good government. It is populism over policy and spin over substance.

The two heavyweights in the art of political spin were both Labor men who won elections ­almost for fun.

In 2006, the Beattie government in Queensland was facing a health crisis. There was a shortage of qualified medical staff amid claims that the minister for health – Peter Beattie’s deputy, Anna Bligh – had not done enough to ­secure the services of enough ­doctors and nurses to keep the public health system afloat.

On cue, the Caboolture Hospital, in Brisbane’s north, closed its emergency department due to staff shortages.

The denizens of Caboolture took to the streets. Guess what Beattie did? He joined them in protest. Not as a spokesperson for the government, not standing on a rostrum addressing an angry crowd but as one of the placard ­wavers and foot stompers protesting against his own government.

When an incredulous journalist attempted to remind Beattie that Caboolture Hospital had closed its doors to the injured and ill largely due to his government’s failed policies, Beattie replied ­succinctly: “And I won’t stop until it’s reopened.”

The leader of the opposition, Lawrence Springborg, a good, decent man and a highly skilled public administrator, knew at once his opponent would always have his measure. There can be no victories when you battle against an opponent who not only embraces both sides of an argument but clambers to the moral high ground from both the north and the east faces.

In the 2003 NSW state election campaign, Bob Carr performed a feat of legerdemain so bold, so outrageously absurd that I still find myself whistling in awe at the thought of it. The campaign had meandered into the first week with Carr and Labor as warm favourites to be returned to power with the loss of a number of seats.

Carr, whose drink of choice is a cup of hot water, had been offered a sausage roll by a journalist on the hustings and turned his nose up at it. The media ran with Carr’s sneer at the pastry snack. Carr’s opponent, John Brogden, picked up on the premier’s profound distaste of the sausage roll and decided to run with it.

The following day, Brogden was seen chowing down on a sausage roll and referring to Carr as a snobby, bookish elitist.

It was a dastardly trap and Brogden gormlessly walked straight into it. The following day, Carr and a gaggle of media went to a bakery in Maroubra where the premier ordered (and was photographed eating) Australia’s favourite one-handed meal, the old rat’s coffin. Last bite consumed, Carr smacked his lips and declared that Brogden was anti-pie.

It all seems impossibly silly now but for the next week Brogden attended daily press conferences in the fervent hope of making policy announcements only to be asked what he had against pies.

Utterly flummoxed, Brogden struggled for clear air for the remainder of the campaign.

Thus, the tired, lazy pro-pie Carr government was elected for a fourth term without losing a seat.

I sense a similar trap being set by the Prime Minister for the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton. Albanese will endure the broken promise rhetoric that will reach fever pitch over the ensuing days. He may even lose a little political capital in the short term.

The feature of the stage three tax cuts was to put a stop to bracket creep. Under Albanese and in an industrial relations environment where wages are rising, people earning more than $150,000 a year will become the victims of it in ­increasing number. The impact of the restructured tax cuts may be inflationary. All the while, Australia’s failing tax system will continue to barely splutter along with its intrinsic inequities.

The government spin will be – and we can virtually write the lines for them – that Labor is delivering to ease cost-of-living pressures on everyday Australians. You can expect to hear those words falling out of Albanese’s mouth mantra-like.

It also conceals the real intent that low and middle income earners, a group who ostensibly are overrepresented in Australia’s regions and the outer suburbs of our major cities, will have their hip pocket nerves jangling.

It is no coincidence that this same group is being targeted by Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party as its one real hope of winning the next election.

Where spin is spun, then the wedge must follow.

Care for a sausage roll, Mr ­Dutton?