Coalition grasping for quick poll wins

PETA Credlin was exactly right. This is a Budget for the next Newspoll. It is not the Budget that should follow an election win, even a narrow win. That’s when you are supposed to take the tough decisions. This is the Budget version of fake news – fake fiscal frugality. It is not a Budget from a Liberal treasurer. It increases taxes big- time. And even that’s not been done to slash the deficit, but to fund even more spending off an already high base. Most dangerously of all, it is not a Budget for our volatile and unpredictable times. It’s not “Trump- adjusted” to incorporate the challenges and opportunities of the Trump presidency. It assumes the economic sun keeps shining brightly out well beyond 2020. It is as Credlin, Tony Abbott’s former consigliore, said on Sky News: all about dragging the PM and the government out of the Newspoll basement. It is about trying to “win” or at least narrow the losing gap in polling, not an election that could be two years away. Yes, it’s a Budget Opposition Leader Bill Shorten ( or even Wayne Swan) could have unveiled, but he most certainly won’t endorse it. But because it’s so cynically political, it’s almost non- ideological. The two fiscal centrepieces are the supposed return to surplus in 2020- 21 ( the same year as last year’s forecast) or a year earlier, on the good debt/ bad debt metric – and that debt characterisation to justify and fund an infrastructure spend. But it gets there by massive tax increases. The two big ones are the bank levy and the increased Medicare levy. But the silent and only too real tax increase of bracket creep is alive and well. Income tax receipts leap by $ 60 billion to a staggering figure of $ 253 billion in 2020- 21 – more than 30 per cent higher than 2016- 17’ s harvest. And the debt keeps rising, to over $ 600 billion gross or $ 375 billion net – even on these optimistic numbers. It is, in sum, a dangerous disgrace.