Anthony Albanese’s response to the federal budget is not so much a traditional budget reply speech as a virtual election campaign launch.
But smothered by the Coalition’s pandemic blank cheque and so far from the real prospect of an election campaign, the Opposition Leader’s new policy offerings neither sink the budget nor offer an exciting alternative.
There is an attempt, in light of the sense that the public still don’t know Albanese although he’s been an MP for 25 years and was deputy prime minister, to link his early, tough life in inner-city Sydney with his public housing policy — but it is unlikely to shift votes.
Wage stagnation remains central to the ALP response and there are policy promises to support that theme but, unable to credibly attack the budget’s expenditure and debt levels, Albanese’s policy alternatives shift to the familiar left on public housing, training and sexual harassment.
Unwilling or unable to attack from a conservative economic position — the Coalition’s weakest point as far as its own base is concerned — Labor has turned to appeal to its own base. However Albanese couldn’t pass up the opportunity of quoting Robert Menzies’ “forgotten people” speech to revisit his theme of “eight long years of government” that the “Liberals want to forget”.
Yet, again, this frustrated retrospective complaining neither damages the budget nor provides a positive prospective outlook for the election. Nor does it address what is a new election battleground: tax cuts.
Albanese’s political response to Josh Frydenberg’s Labor-lite budget suggests he accepts the conventional wisdom that Scott Morrison is committed to an early election — that is, between August and December. This may prove to be a damaging assumption. Yes, a PM has to be prepared to go to an election when they think they can win but Morrison won’t race to the polls and this means Albanese’s budget response could still be a long way from the ballot box.
Finding it difficult to mount any sort of assault on Fortress Frydenberg, Albanese has shifted to a broader economic argument about wages and market intervention.
It is extraordinary that even before he got to his feet, the big-ticket budget items — billions in aged and child care — were no longer areas of real contention.
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