BEN HARVEY: The tough-love pitch I wish Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton had made

To the people of this great nation, we apologise.

We are sorry for what you will hear from us between now and May 3.

Fellow Australians, we have been lying to you for too long.

But the simple arithmetic that is electoral mathematics dictates the deception continues.

So, we will again play to the crowd by delivering election speeches laced with self-congratulatory phrases about Australia’s iron will to succeed.

We will talk about this country’s grit and its people’s determination in the face of adversity, referencing with nauseating frequency the latest cyclone, flood or bushfire.

We will saturate our public addresses with emotive nods to the important roles of mateship and egalitarianism in the pursuit prosperity.

We make you feel that you are all ANZACs when in fact you are pathetic, whinging children forever demanding more from Government.

Fellow Australians, you have become soft.

You have come to expect government to shield you from the most minor of discomforts.

And we politicians have run to your aid like helicopter parents, wrapping you in cotton wool after the slightest of grazes.

You have stretched the definition of crisis to include everyday hurdles previous generations would have taken in their stride.

Cost-of-living crisis?

Please.

For the vast majority of you, fellow Australians, this is a cost-of-living within your means crisis.

Yes, many are genuinely unable to put food on the table. Yes, many cannot afford to pay their household bills.

But for most of you, that is not the case.

You cannot afford to go on as many holidays, or upgrade your cars as frequently. That is not a crisis; it’s an inconvenience.

Surely, you must at least blush when you take to TikTok to fret about rising bills moments after using the same device to book your third getaway to Nusa Dua this year.

Surely, deep down you realise you need to toughen up and lay in the over-leveraged bed you have made?

For in eschewing the cult of personal responsibility — for so many generations a key clause in the social contract — you have turned this country into a shadow of its former self.

Fellow Australians, it’s as much our fault as yours.

The rot started in the 1990s with John Howard’s baby bonus.

We paid you to have sex and wondered why you became soft.

We made you addicted to government handouts through the GFC and the pandemic and we are terrified of what you will do if we make you go cold turkey.

So, to avoid the delirium tremens, the handouts continue.

Electricity credits so you are spared the ignominy of sleeping in a house warmer than 22C.

Forgiving student loans, so that tomorrow’s tradies can pay for the degrees of today’s engineers.

More free visits to the doctor and more free medicine at the chemist.

Tax breaks and fuel excise holidays all paid for on credit.

Sure, we’re handcuffing future generations to more than $1 trillion worth of debt.

Yes, we’re condemning our children and grandchildren to lives under the crushing yoke of tens of billions in interest payments.

True, we are spiking the guns of future treasurers who might have to keep the country going through an actual crisis, be it one of a military or health origin.

But the alternative is we turn the taps off and make you cut your own budgets today.

How will you react if we ask you to live within your means?

If we suggest you don’t need as much “me time” so book just one holiday to Bali this year instead of three?

If we upset your work-life balance by recommending you endure this cost-of-living crisis by getting a full-time job or, God forbid, a second one?

What will you say if the solution to rising petrol prices we put on the table isn’t an excise rebate — it’s catching the bus?

How will first-homebuyers react if we suggest they cut back the scope on their house, forgoing the butler’s pantry and becoming comfortable with the spectre of dinner guests seeing a dirty saucepan?

We won’t do that because we are terrified of being branded out of touch.

Modern prime ministers fear a social media backlash the way John Curtin feared a Japanese invasion.

Joe Hockey said you were a nation of lifters, not leaners.

You don’t even lean anymore. You lay.

The new social contract involves you laying down — fat, dumb and happy — with your hands out whilst we buckle to your demands, however unreasonable they are.

And all the while we both studiously avoid having a conversation about what happens to the Lucky Country when we stop making our own luck.