EDITORIAL: Mediscare is back. Why do politicians keep treating voters like they’re stupid

For the fourth election in a row, Mediscare is back.

Inside his series of pre-announcements ahead of what will be a gloomy Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook on Wednesday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers laid a booby trap and waited for an unsuspecting Opposition member to walk into it.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor obligingly did so.

Dr Chalmers spent the first half of this week preparing Australians for a fiscal shock. The days of surpluses are over. It’s deficits from here for the foreseeable future.

That’s thanks to a $100 billion write down in the value of mining export revenue as well as a further $25 billion in what the Government is calling “unavoidable” new spending commitments. That $25 billion includes $2.3 billion for Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The opportunity to smash Labor for its fiscal ill-discipline was irresistible to Mr Taylor.

He accused the Government of having “lost control” of the Budget.

In doing so, he gave Dr Chalmers all the ammunition he needed to reheat Labor’s favourite campaign weapon.

“If Angus Taylor and Peter (Dutton) think that extra spending for Medicare and medicines and pensions indexation is wasteful spending, then they need to come clean this week to the Australian people and say, how much do they cut on Medicare and medicines and pensions?” Dr Chalmers said.

After all, Mediscare has helped Labor win one election and was highly effective in two others. Why wouldn’t they dust it off for the fourth time?

Who cares that voters hate it?

And after eight years, they’ve wised up.

But that won’t stop Labor doing it anyway.

Just as it won’t stop Dr Chalmers and others blaming the previous Coalition government for the forecast deficit (the two surpluses which preceded it were all because of Labor though).

The Coalition isn’t innocent of this sort of petty, nonsense campaigning either.

Recall their 2019 scare campaign which accused Labor of having a secret plan to implement a so-called “death tax” if elected. Of course, there was no such plan.

Just as the Liberals know Medicare is off-limits, Labor understands that the implementation of an inheritance tax would spell electoral doom.

Voters aren’t stupid. So why are our politicians insistent on treating them like they are?

Politicians can choose whatever campaign tactics they like.

But if they choose to continue down this path, they should do so knowing that Australians are well and truly over it.

They don’t want to hear exaggerated or overblown accounts of what the other mob are plotting to do.

Voters want to hear from our leaders what their own parties’ plans and policies are.

What are they going to do to make Australians’ lives better?

What are they doing to dig us out of this cost-of-living crisis?

It’s the answers to those questions on which this election will hinge.