History repeats – except at the ABC
WORDS of well, something, from the ABC’s top political journalist Barry Cassidy.
Speaking yesterday morning Cassidy opined that as far as he could recall, there’d never been a Budget to “virtually launch an election campaign”.
Well, I guess not – apart that is from the very last federal election campaign, all the way back in 2016.
That Budget was brought down on May 3; less than a week later the then-PM Malcolm Turnbull went to the Governor-General to call his double-dissolution election. And the rest, including ultimately Turnbull, would be history.
Indeed, Turnbull had actually announced in midMarch that the budget would kick off an (early) election campaign.
Incidentally, it was disastrous enough that Turnbull – a complete political and campaigning idiot – would commit to a potentially disastrous overlong two-month election campaign, but by signaling his tactics in March he made it effectively into a near fourmonth campaign.
The 2016 Budget was brought forward just like this one to accommodate the election timing; albeit in its case only by a week as against this one coming a month early.
Cassidy might have forgotten, but the 2016 experience of using a Budget to kick off an election campaign was seared deeply, very deeply, into the minds of PM ScoMo – who back then was treasurer – and new boy treasurer Frydenberg.
Back then the dynamic duo thought it would be a good idea to kick off by bashing the government’s base. This time round we got a cash splash.