Budget 2020: The mood was less Margaret Thatcher … more Oprah

Josh Frydenberg, Scott Morrison and Michael McCormack make their way through the House of Representatives for the Treasurer’s budget speech. Picture: Alex Ellinghausen

“I feel like I’m attending my own funeral,” Mathias Cormann mused as he walked through his seventh and final budget lockup.

The silence that follows the mass incarceration of journalists seemingly served as a pseudo wake for the retiring Finance Minister. Was the rain and fog that surrounded the Canberra Bubble™ a metaphor for what was to come?

When the witching hour (7:30pm, Tuesday) finally came for Josh Frydenberg, he wasn’t leaving anything to chance. Wearing his Australian flag pin and tapping his newly shined lace-ups, there were four water bottles in front of him. Liquid lubricant in case of a coughing repeat of his shouldabeen budget speech in May, when the economy was flat on its back and Josh was back on the hack.

Just like Donald Trump, the Treasurer is hoping Australia has immunity from the darkest depths of the COVID recession. And just like all Quiet Australians, he and Scott Morrison are praying we won’t be stuck in economy when the airports reopen.

“No stone will go unturned to get access to a vaccine,” Frydenberg promised. You’d hope not, given the $7bn the government is splashing on infrastructure and construction.

Once an adman, always an adman. The PM’s message for this budget is simple: jobs, jobs, jobs.

Earlier, behind closed doors, Morrison warned Coalition colleagues that the measures would be “extraordinary”. Ideologically, anyway. Despite Frydenberg’s foreshadowing, it was less Margaret Thatcher and more Oprah.

But it’s “temporary, targeted and proportionate”, the PM told the party room. And, always the optimist, added that the “light was getting a little brighter”.

“It’s not budget actuals, it’s budget estimates,” Cormann reminded everyone.

Mixing weather analogies, he said: “No one expected the sort of storm and magnitude Australians had to face this year.” But don’t worry! “We had the fiscal firepower to deal with it.” No wonder Morrison has nicknamed him the “spirit level of the budget”.

A mere 18 months ago, Frydenberg declared to the house: “Tonight, I announce the budget is back in the black and Australia is back on track.” On Tuesday night, his tone was sombre: “Our circumstances may have changed but our values endure.”

Luckily, “official” knees-up are banned, as Liberal MPs aren’t in a celebratory mood. As one backbench Batman fan noted, butchering a quote: “The Dark Knight Frydenberg is not delivering a budget Quiet Australia deserves, but the one it needs right now.”

The question on everybody’s lips was asked by the ABC’s Leigh Sales. “Will you ever deliver a ­surplus?” she inquired.

“I’m certainly not putting a date on that,” Frydenberg replied.