Can postman Scott Morrison deliver his biggest challenge?

Illustration: Lobbecke

Scott Morrison aims to convince voters he is the trusted parliamentary postman. Come political rain, hail or shine and whatever challenge he is given, he delivers.

His methods and style may not be pretty, but as Tony Abbott once said, Morrison is the “master of difficult policy and administration” and a “splendid advocate”. He also said he was “no wimp”.

That is exactly the trifecta of talents Malcolm Turnbull needs now. After a few hiccups in their relationship over tax reform and Liberals questioning whether the Treasurer and the Prime Minister were in lockstep, a united team is essential for the election and Morrison’s next big mission starts ­tomorrow.

Morrison has not missed a beat since Abbott handed him the immigration portfolio in opposition in 2009. He amplified the problems under Labor and with an ­arrogant, secretive and no-compromise approach he delivered the signature election promise to “stop the boats”.

Despite Morrison’s ambition to get his hands on the Defence portfolio, Abbott moved his Mr Fix-it to social security to repair the clumsy efforts of the ­Coalition’s horror first budget to cut welfare and pensions.

Again Morrison delivered. Unpopular indexation changes that would have left all 2.4 million aged pensioners worse off were dumped in favour of a smarter plan to limit the losers to 326,000 and actually make 172,000 pensioners better off.

You can bet Morrison will take exactly the same approach with superannuation in this budget.

The generous tax concessions for those on very high incomes will be sliced as he argues it is about protecting the integrity of the tax and super systems.

But he will make sure there are winners, with some of the savings redirected to improve super nest eggs for lower-income workers, especially mums wanting to return to work.

And while insisting it won’t be a “fistful of dollars” budget with pre-election bribes, there will still be giveaways for those voters whom Morrison says are “the hope of the side” and fit into the category of working hard to grow the economy and jobs such as small business and people sucked into a higher tax bracket.

After all, Morrison is still a politician who has made no secret of his ambition. He once told his local paper in his precious ­Sutherland Shire in Sydney’s south when asked if he wanted to be prime minister: “I am up for any challenge.”

Tomorrow, when he stands at the dispatch box in the House of Representatives at 7.30pm to hand down his first budget, it will be the biggest challenge of his nine years in parliament.

Not in recent memory have so many expected so much from a first budget. But as Morrison admits, this is not a typical budget. Within days of it landing, ­Turnbull will visit the Governor-General to request the first double dissolution election in three ­decades.

Announcing a budget is one thing, but to deliver what you promise is entirely different.

Morrison will have little chance to prove those credentials before polling day, but can our fourth Treasurer in four years make an increasingly disill­usioned public believe he has a credible and believable plan for the ­budget?

And can that plan underpin the Coalition’s election campaign?

Morrison is at his best when he is in a fight, particularly if the critics say he can’t win. He will argue that his plan can be delivered through “continued discipline” and “living within your means”.

He outlined his simple budget philosophy to Laurie Oakes yesterday: “We are not spending money we don’t have. We are not spending money we haven’t saved. We are not increasing the deficit to do it. We are not increasing taxes to do it. It’s affordable. It’s real money.”

And the fight? “Unlike what we saw from the Gillard government throwing money around, making promises on health and education, and the ultimate outcome of that is people are either left dis­appointed or they pay more tax for it.”

Labor insists all the promises made under Wayne Swan’s budgets such as the Gonski school funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme were fully funded but Morrison and Turnbull say they were a “fantasy”.

Morrison’s pitch is that what he promises tomorrow night will be delivered, with no excuses.

It’s a big call and not one entirely within his control. Swan infamously announced four years of surpluses that never happened, in part because of revenue writedowns. Abbott said there would be “no excuses and no surprises” but there were and he was marked down more harshly because of his pledge not to break promises.

Morrison understands the stakes are high. A good budget may not win the election, but a bad budget can lose it.

“There is a lot riding on ensuring that we get this plan right,” he admits.

And there are focus-group tested phrases the government has chosen to shape the message. Those playing budget bingo during the Treasurer’s 30-minute televised speech should lock in “jobs and growth” and “our economic plan” to “manage the transition of the economy” as their top choices. Morrison gave all three a good workout yesterday and will continue to do so.

This time last year Morrison’s pension fix stole the show and made Hockey look limp. Now the stage is all his. He led the razor gang sessions putting together the budget. It has his name in lights. It is time to deliver.