Budget 2022: Labor to wave ‘cynical election ploy’ through

Anthony Albanese appears on morning TV. One cynical ploy deserves another. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

All the budget pressure is now on Labor.

Anthony Albanese has wisely and understandably ticked off the $8.6bn central relief for cost-of-living pressures that he described as a “cynical election ploy” and a “cash bribe” for voters.

No opposition with any sense of self-preservation would stand in the way of tax cuts or one-off cash relief for people on low to middle incomes who are experiencing a spike in household cost of living.

So the Opposition Leader and Jim Chalmers as Labor’s Treasury spokesman are stepping aside and instead attacking the quality and quantity of the relief.

What’s more, Labor wants to diminish the obviously popular cost relief as an election ploy and shift the debate to the wider economy, especially wages.

But this is not a comprehensive budget response and Labor failed to lay a glove on the budget in question time.

Coalition backbenchers there showed the most spirit and life in months.

Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, buoyed by a positive reaction to Tuesday’s budget, immediately moved to the offensive, demanding the Labor leader deliver “an alternative budget”, an alternative plan, and show the public what he intends to do if he leads the ALP to victory at the May federal election.

For days, Albanese has been playing down expectations of his budget-in-reply speech on Thursday night, explicitly saying it is not an “alternative budget”.

Yet the Prime Minister, deriding Albanese’s record of never having delivered a budget, is building expectations by declaring Labor can’t remain a small target forever.

Labor has tried to limit any detailed policy initiatives since the last election and has campaigned on Morrison’s failures and personality.

But the budget reply is one of the inescapable tests for an opposition leader, particularly since it could be the closing moment of the 46th parliament before Morrison calls an election.

The Treasurer has put out a more than reasonable budget response to the challenges of cost-of-living pressures and debt and deficit in the global economic circumstances in the face of an election.

Albanese can continue to try to keep a low profile but he runs the risk of losing momentum and giving hope to the Coalition if voters feel that after nine years of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government, the time has come for what Labor has to offer.