EDITORIAL: That’s right. We are still talking about the budget
EDITORIAL: It’s been a week shy of a month since the Budget was handed down (time flies when you’re having not much fun) and it’s still among the top political stories every day. And not in a good way.
Perhaps tired of the incessant chatter about CGT and GDP and the Treasurer with a trove of woes, you the reader may have preferred to read a headline without the word Budget in it.
We’re pretty sure Albo would agree with you.
It’s been a week shy of a month since the Budget was handed down (time flies when you’re having not much fun) and it’s still among the top political stories every day.
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Usually not much more than a boring blip for normal people, the Budget gives politicians, economists and journos the jollies but even they can only sustain interest for so long.
Day 26 since launch and Albo is still in orbit, freefalling — his destination unknown.
Given he’s had such a rocky few weeks will it be the electorate of Bullwinkel in WA, where recent polling suggested there was a 100 per cent probability Pauline Hanson’s One Nation would steal the seat if an election were held today.
Or maybe to Forde in Queensland, where the most popular political party in the country would have taken the seat from Labor’s Rowan Holzberger.
Albo & co’s Budget landed with a thud on May 12 and things haven’t really improved since then.
The initial wet reception has only gotten worse, with blunders and backpedalling and dire predictions including housing prices going backwards thanks to proposed changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.
Then there was the doozy this week when Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson rebutted the Prime Minister’s fun claim he was returning to the pre-1999 capital gains tax levels before Peter Costello introduced a 50 per cent discount.
Of course it wasn’t all beer and skittles for wannabe PM Pauline. One Nation had a shocker on Friday when both MP Barnaby Joyce and senator Sean Bell fumbled their way through interviews on what is admittedly a shockingly straightforward policy that would see foreign owners forced to sell their home — and jailed if they do not.
A hapless Bell was asked repeatedly whether foreign owners would have their homes seized if they failed to sell within the two-year grace period.
“The answer is that this is going to be, this policy is one that’s being brought forward and investigated”, he blathered like a man well and truly not on his game.
Meanwhile Joyce had to re record his answer to a question about whether permanent residents would be forced to sell after he initially said they would.
It’s a lucky man who gets a do over.
And there was Albo, back in the hot seat again telling us he’s no Tin Man because he’s got the ticker to make tough decisions when it comes to the economy.
His own hype man, Albo talked up his maligned reforms by saying the government had to act now rather than “kick the can down the road”.
“What we couldn’t afford to do is to sit back and say: ‘Well, you know, we’re in a position to do something about this. We know that it’s an issue, but we’re going to just stand still’.”
Surely, in hindsight, standing still is better than falling down — or going backwards.
