Sobering response to nation in need
SCOTT Morrison, or “Scomo” to his mates, has learnt quickly since being caught out last summer sipping mai tais on Waikiki Beach while
Australia burned.
Bushfire victims refusing to shake the Prime Minister’s hand could have been the enduring image that haunted Morrison right up to the next election.
Yet, the willingness of Morrison and his Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to turn traditional ideological orthodoxy on its ear and throw cash at needy sectors of the economy during the COVID-19 crisis has had even some of their most ardent critics begrudgingly saying “cheers”.
The belated 2020-21 Federal Budget continues that trend. Red ink is everywhere with $480bn in deficits forecast to be raked up over the next four years and gross debt to break through the eye-watering $1 trillion barrier in 12 months.
It is certainly not the budget Morrison and Frydenberg imagined when their party pre-emptively produced souvenir coffee mugs last year to celebrate leading Australia back into surplus.
Yet there’s barely a fleshy bit of skimping on the COVID recovery for federal Labor to poke and prod (although I’m sure they’ll find something), let alone a sign of the austerity measures you’d expect from a pair with a surplus obsession.
The fast-tracked tax cuts for 11.6m lower to middle-income earners, valued at $17.8bn, might be a blunt way to go about trying to get consumers spending.
But federal Labor treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers would be crazy-brave to oppose the package.
Yet, while tax cuts might be the standard conservative cure-all, Morrison and Frydenberg have set about ticking other boxes also, seemingly ambivalent about the $500bn COVID bill. The unemployed, business owners, homebuyers and pensioners all get a lick of the Prime Minister’s cash-splash.
After his less than stellar “Ladies’ Budget” while Treasurer a few years back, which actually delivered diddly, Morrison has also made sure working women didn’t miss out.
Only time will tell whether the country can afford all this spending, but right now Australians are convinced they can’t do with out it. So it’s Mahalo to you, Scomo.