The Treasurer and the Opposition Leader have also declared that the Coalition/Labor “will always provide a helping hand to those that need it”/“not leave anyone behind”.
Labor’s Treasury spokesman, Jim Chalmers, also said the Coalition’s central budget test last year was whether “unemployment is too high for long” while Frydenberg put jobs as his measure for economic success and said last night: “Jobs are coming back. The economy is coming back.”
But this doesn’t mean there will be no differentiation between the Coalition and Labor when it comes to economic management and budget control at the next election. Far from it.
It is true there has been an outbreak of shape shifting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scott Morrison has dropped traditional Liberal tenets of faith, Frydenberg has committed Australia to higher levels of spending and debt than Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan during the Global Financial Crisis and Albanese and Chalmers are demanding debt reduction and a “quality of spend”.
Yet there’s enough divergence on priorities, evidence of long-held differences, clearly-stated positions and different policy and practical perspectives to ensure a stark choice for the electorate on economic management.
Superficially Scott Morrison’s determination to deal emphatically with major political and policy problems makes his Liberal budget look like something Wayne Swan would be proud of: billions for aged care, child care and mental health.
A broad grab bag of superannuation, health, housing, investment and education initiatives for women and a boost for homegrown manufacturing research and development all tick boxes for progressives.
Albanese could see the threat coming from Morrison stealing his political clothes and positioned Labor ahead of Tuesday’s budget saying the Coalition, in power for eight years, “always waits until there’s an absolute crisis before it acts” and had just picked up Labor’s ideas.
But saying the Government should have acted earlier and was adopting ideas with which he agreed doesn’t create a forward-looking political campaign which must demonstrate Labor is a viable alternative government.
Apart from Morrison casting aside Liberal ideology during the pandemic and proposing to spend a fortune on things Labor supports there are challenges and tests for both sides as they decide what needs to pass the parliament and what to take to the next election.
The essential questions for Labor are how to handle the headline issues the Coalition has proposed and how to frame the economic justification for opposing or changing those it does not agree with.
If Labor decides a Coalition program costs too much it then has to cut it or propose a different way to spend the money? If Labor decides not enough is being spent does it offer to spend more and risk reviving the big-spending agenda of the last losing election?
Child care was already a point of difference before the budget with Albanese saying that not only was the Coalition acting too slowly it wasn’t spending enough. Labor says its child care scheme – subsidising families with incomes up to $500,000 – quadruples the Coalition scheme and is an “economic” initiative aimed at lifting productivity. This is a case of spending more.
On aged care Albanese has signalled its about the “quality of the spend” and whether money goes to aged care workers.
Don’t be fooled into thinking there’s no choice at the next election.
Treasurer seeks to force vote on tax cuts as Coalition slams ‘election bribe’
Jim Chalmers ramped up efforts to wedge the Coalition by trying to force a vote on Labor's tax cuts in parliament, saying failure to support the measure would mean Peter Dutton was in favour of higher taxes.
Whyalla ‘off-budget’ spend conceals the creep
Jim Chalmers plans to spend almost $85bn ‘off-budget’ over the next four years, adding to gross debt.
Josh Frydenberg has been ribbed for producing a Labor-lite budget and Anthony Albanese has been asked if he’d be proud to bring down a budget with $17.7bn more for aged care and $1.7bn for child care.