Budget 2021: Patient PM plays game on election

While Anthony Albanese mixes footy metaphors, Scott Morrison ignores post-budget election speculation.

Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

Never before has a budget prompted so much feverish early election speculation, yet contained so little content relevant to the next election, than Josh Frydenberg’s 2021 “once-in-a-century pandemic” budget on Tuesday night.

Even before the full detail of the extra $68bn in budget spending took the total COVID-19 bill to beyond $300bn, Scott Morrison was being accused of putting re-election and politics ahead of the economy.

Anthony Albanese’s budget reply speech to the parliament was couched in terms of an election campaign launch, with an “off-budget” $10bn social housing centrepiece and a description of the Treasurer’s effort as “a patch-up for the next election”.

The Prime Minister repeatedly has had to fend off questions about an early election before the end of this year and repeatedly declare the election “is next year” — a House of Representatives and half-Senate election must be held by May 22 next year and can be held from mid-August this year.

Of course, Morrison as Liberal leader must be prepared to go to an election at any time, particularly if he thinks he can win, and he didn’t entirely rule one out this year by saying some “circumstances” are beyond his control.

“The election is next year,” he said after the budget. “I’ve said that. I can’t control every circumstance in Australian politics, but what I can do is stay focused on the fight that matters and that’s the pandemic and securing health and livelihoods of Australians.”

While speculation whirled around him, Morrison — who has always indicated he wants to go to an election next year — worked hard to keep his message on the pandemic recovery.

“This budget is about securing that recovery because it can be risked, it can be lost, the gains can be taken away. Just like we’ve seen in Europe as they go into a double-dip recession,” he warned. “We need to keep going on the path that we have set ourselves. That is about securing jobs, protecting lives, about protecting livelihoods.”

Morrison also wants to move from the specifics of the budget — a battle he has won by default — on to the global aspects and threats from COVID-19.

Scott Morrison watches as Josh Frydenberg delivers the budget. Picture: Getty Images

Time and again the Prime Minister and Treasurer have said the pandemic is not over, Australia is not safe from the virus and the global economy is fragile. They also argue that the budget is not an end itself but, in a pandemic world, it is a means to fixing the economy.

For his part, the Opposition Leader — after swiftly moving from the budget to election promises — said on Friday that Labor was “absolutely ready” for an early election and he had always expected the “bounce” of the ball to start the election game “would occur on budget day this year”.

“We intend to kick with the wind in the fourth quarter,” the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league tragic declared in Australian rules football terms to broaden his appeal. It was clear Albanese wanted to get past the budget as soon as possible and broaden the argument beyond measures he couldn’t oppose or actually wanted to spend more on than the government.

In the first parliamentary question time after the budget, Labor went through the motions expected of it without enthusiasm, heart or a strategy. There was not one question from the opposition on the $100bn JobKeeper program and within an hour Labor shifted from asking questions about the budget to grilling the Prime Minister over the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in Parliament House.

Part of the problem with Albanese’s football analogy — apart from its code shapeshifting — is that the pandemic has moved the goalposts; everything is different.

The Coalition has dropped its traditional fiscal straitjacket; the magnitude of debt and deficit has lost perspective; there is no argument about the biggest single fiscal outlay in Australia’s history for keeping people in work; interest rates and inflation are effectively at zero; and assumptions and outcomes on coronavirus vaccinations and border openings overwhelm budget measures.

The real electoral contest is going to be about immediate support to combat the coronavirus to protect “lives and livelihoods”, and long-term economic management across the next decade at least as Australia commits to a trillion dollars in debt and 10 years of budget deficits.

The biggest assumption in last October’s budget was that there would be a vaccine developed and it largely would be distributed across Australia in the first half of this year. That hasn’t happened.

While Labor may overstate the public demand for a quick rollout of vaccines, given the extent of vaccine hesitancy and complacency born of safety, there is no doubt vaccinations and border closures are the biggest non-budget political issues determining the timing and result of the next election.

So far the Morrison government has received overwhelming public support for its pandemic measures and it will take a real disaster to change that equation — but this doesn’t mean Morrison can afford to call an election when socially distanced voters will be vividly reminded of low vaccination rates.

And even Albanese concedes this week’s budget will not be at the heart of the next election, but broader economic issues, appeals to traditional political bases, contrasts between market economics and intervention, tax cuts due in 2024 and wages’ growth.

So, in budget terms, Frydenberg has already had a victory; Fortress Frydenberg has intimidated Labor out of a frontal assault, and moves with an advantage into a debate about who is better to handle the economy still facing global challenges and in need of long-term repair.

Frydenberg told Inquirer he believes the Coalition’s success so far has been built on the principles of Robert Menzies and under the direction of John Howard.

“The Morrison government’s economic response to COVID has been guided by clear principles, namely that is targeted, temporary and using existing systems,” he said.

“JobKeeper is the perfect example; we tapered it and introduced a second-tier payment before bringing it to an end as the economy began to strengthen. This was the right decision with Labor’s doomsday prediction, that the end of JobKeeper would see the sky falling in, failing to eventuate.

“In fact, more than 120,000 people have come off income support in the five weeks following the end of JobKeeper.

“In this budget we have maintained stimulus measures like the low and middle-income tax offset and expanded instant asset write-off, both of which are needed to secure the recovery and are consistent with Liberal philosophy of lower taxes and support for small business,” the Treasurer said in answer to criticism that he had given up on Liberal principles and economic discipline.

“The key to repairing the budget is repairing the economy and this is what Tuesday night’s budget was designed to do.”

This is the beginning of a long-term debate on economic repair and, rather than the start of an early election campaign, could very well be Albanese’s “bounce of the ball” to start the first quarter of an election campaign rather than the fourth and last quarter.

In Albanese’s football analogy, he may be hoping to emulate his South Sydney Rabbitohs in the 1909 rugby league final, who tricked the Balmain team into not appearing and won by forfeit, but it’s more likely Morrison is the one tricking Albanese into kicking off too early.