Labor keen to draw blood from this fiscal horror show

On Tuesday, we’ll see a budget that reflects a wartime-like government that did what it believed it had to do to cushion the economic blow and facilitate the earliest possible path out of the carnage. Picture: Adam Taylor

Tuesday’s budget will read like a script for a fiscal horror movie.

But every reasonable Australian knows how we got here and why.

As Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said when the July economic statement was issued: “What was the alternative?”

This is a crisis budget first and a reform budget second.

And there can be no doubt that it would have been infinitely worse had the government not made the effort seven years ago on coming to office to start repairing the damage it had inherited from Labor.

The level of economic and social disruption that would have followed had the government not responded in the way that it has would have been so severe as to have made the recovery effort an almost impossible task.

In that fashion, it will be a budget that reflects a wartime-like government that did what it believed it had to do to cushion the economic blow and facilitate the earliest possible path out of the carnage.

It is no small irony that the size of the headline numbers in the budget will in fact reflect the economic damage that has been avoided.

The worse the budget position, the better off people presumably will be. But at some point, Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg know that they will need to turn their attention to getting the budget back to a more sustainable and healthy position.

All three, Cormann included, have been at pains to make the point that this elevated spending is temporary.

The challenge for Anthony Albanese is in how he responds.

It will be critical for the Labor leader to take a realistic approach when considering the opposition’s alternative for rescuing the economy.

But already the signs aren’t good.

Already the Labor leader has laid out clear markers. Expect to hear more about the “Morrison recession” this week and in months to come.

Both the Labor leader and his Treasury spokesman, Jim Chalmers, have road tested this theme in recent days.

Of course it is a madness, but for Albanese it is irrelevant.

He is intent on trying to recreate the Coalition’s successful campaign against the Rudd government spending during the GFC.

This will become the foundation for Labor’s response — that Morrison is responsible for a litany of mistakes during the crisis.

The “Morrison recession” is the genesis of a political attack that Labor will pursue from this week until the next election.