Missing element undermines an equal contest

This was a tight debate and an equal contest between Josh Frydenberg as Treasurer and Chris Bowen as opposition Treasury spokesman and a former treasurer.

The focus was on the political and policy defects in each other’s vastly different programs. That is understandable.

The missing element, however, is a serious growth strategy to get Australia back on a 3 per cent growth trajectory, thereby delivering sustained increases in living standards.

Both Frydenberg and Bowen were competent and sharp.

The huge irony is there was only brief emphasis on economic policy to boost productivity and the dangers to future prosperity from a slowing economy.

Bowen was effective in his critique of the past six years of Coalition policy but was weak in making the economic argument for Labor’s tax/spending agenda that poses a distinct risk to the economy.

The problem for Labor was alluded to in the questions — the risk arising from big spending measures that depend upon contentious revenue raising that cannot be guaranteed, given the Senate’s proven record.

Bowen talked about mandates but mandates, unfortunately, were declared dead years ago — Tony Abbott had a mandate to repeal the carbon tax and Labor treated that with contempt, voting against abolition.

Frydenberg nailed a number of the risks in Labor’s agenda: his overarching theme was that Labor’s focus was not about growing the economic pie but redistributing the pie.

The Treasurer rejected any notion of the government returning to a corporate tax cut for major business.

Frydenberg, however, is burdened by economic reality, namely the absence of any easy formula to boost wage levels or reboot an economy that is sufficiently faltering to provoke expectations of an interest rate cut.

In the end, neither player did enough to shift the dial in the economic debate, but they did offer different views on the economy.

Bowen was a pessimist, talking of slowing growth, weak consumption and zero inflation, making it clear that if the Reserve Bank was fool enough to cut interest rates this week, Labor would hail this as proof of its critique.

Frydenberg highlighted the defect in Bowen’s argument.

If the economy is faltering then what is the justification for the significant tax burden Labor plans that will hit high-income earners and the investment class.