Save articles for later
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.
The last time Anthony Albanese was involved in a full and proper budget – as opposed to the interregnum budget Labor delivered last October following its May election victory – he was infrastructure minister in Julia Gillard’s government.
That guy was the Albo of old, a man as-yet un-glowed-up; a man more lumpen of suit and of manner, and unlikely to ever bother magazines such as InStyle, for which he was photographed during last year’s election campaign.
The budget contains a long-overdue reversal of a punitive policy enacted by Julia Gillard’s government, which has sat heavy on the Labor conscience.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government – apart from famously causing Old Albo to weep in public due to its constant leadership ructions – did not have a reputation for fiscal rectitude.
It wrote a lotta cheques it couldn’t cash. More accurately, it wrote a lotta cheques the Australian taxpayer couldn’t cash.
Tony Abbott called those bad cheques “reckless Labor promises”, and when he won government in a landslide in 2013 refused to honour many of them.
Labor – and Old Albo – were consigned to the political wilderness for the next decade, in large part because they had branded themselves as poor economic managers, a reputation rammed home by Abbott with his characteristic muscularity.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese knows change is best done slowly in Australia, with no sudden movements.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Now everything is different, and so is Prime Minister Albanese.
His suits are better, and so is his social calendar – in the past fortnight alone he has roved with élan from celebrity weddings to coronations.
The man from the Labor left, the man who loved to fight Tories, has been refashioned into a committed political paceman, a patient strategist.
New Albo is in this for the long haul, with a big agenda and grand plans.
But he knows that change is best done slowly in Australia, with no sudden movements.
This budget shows a treasurer and a prime minister eager to deliver to the many mouths opening up to be fed after the long period Labor endured, not just out of power, but out of hope.
The progressive agenda grew fat in that time, and was sharpened by the calculated neglect of welfare recipients by the former Coalition government, notably those on the JobSeeker payment.
Labor was always going to come into power with a long list of needy groups to soothe. It was always going to need to fashion that list into a brutal hierarchy, and that hierarchy, where one disadvantaged group is placed above another, was always going to have a price attached.
This budget shows a treasurer and a prime minister eager to deliver to the many mouths opening up to be fed after the long period Labor endured, not just out of power, but out of hope.
And so we see modest amounts being given to the most needy – a $40 a fortnight increase for those on Jobseeker, Youth Allowance and Austudy. That’s not quite an extra $3 a day more. An extension of the higher over-60s JobSeeker rate to over-55s too. Single parents – most of them women – will see their government assistance extended to when their youngest child has settled into high school. This is a long-overdue reversal of a punitive policy enacted by Gillard’s government, which has sat heavy on the Labor conscience since. In his budget speech, Chalmers gave a shout-out to this group: “Over 90 per cent of these parents are single mums; they deserve our respect and support for the incredible job they do”. That was one for the true believers, as they say.
Labor policies like Medicare and the NDIS have been shored up. Aged care employees will be paid better. Commonwealth rent assistance will be increased. Bulk-billing for children, pensioners and concession cardholders will be strengthened.
These are all the decisions of a sensible Labor government – a balance of head and heart.
At least, that’s one way of looking at it.
Another way of looking at it is that Labor could have done more.
People protesting against the low rate of the JobSeeker in March. Tuesday’s budget gives a modest boost to the most needy.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
The Labor government generally, and Albanese in particular, is politically unassailable for a fleeting moment.
The budget will dance briefly into the black this financial year, before stepping back into deficit.
And just look at that lovely surplus!
Four beautiful billion dollars this year made possible by policy decisions taken by this government (notably the decision not to spend bonus revenue from commodity prices and tax receipts).
If it was made possible by policy decisions this time, why not make some more policy decisions to make it possible again next time?
And if a surplus is possible next time, then surely it is also possible to spend some of it on people perched on the next rung down in the hierarchy of disadvantage?
Is this a budget of sensible caution, borne of bitter experience? A strategic plan to pace a reform agenda in line with public opinion, all the better to entrench it in the long term?
Or does it come from something more prosaic, and altogether more human – political timidity?
Maybe the prime minister – and his government – is betting on Future Albo, who will be able to deliver more, if only his base waits patiently, and if only good economic winds prevail, and if only his party stays unified and free of scandal, and if only he first convinces the broader Australian public that his is a government of grown-ups, and that Labor has cleansed itself of the fiscal sins of the past.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
Most Viewed in Politics
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article