EDITORIAL: The moment it changed for Albanese and Chalmers
In politics there can be a time when everything changes. For the Albanese Government that moment is now.
In politics there can be a time when everything changes.
For the Albanese Government that moment is now.
Such is the blow to the standing of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers from the broken promises Budget that their legacy is now forever tarnished.
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Trust is one of life’s most important and powerful emotions. It is hard to earn and when lost it can be impossible to regain.
Trust may be a politician’s most valuable commodity.
In some ways then it is almost baffling that Mr Albanese could allow Dr Chalmers to put into the Budget the changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing which the Prime Minister had so tetchily ruled out before he was returned at the election held in May last year. Yep, only just over a year ago.
Did anybody around the Cabinet table think such a blatant broken promise was not a good idea?
Were Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers so carried away by their election victory and resultant seat buffer that they thought themselves infallible?
Or were they so foolish as to think there would be no cost?
The ramifications of the Budget tax changes will take a while to show up amid competing interpretations of how everyone facing an impact will react.
And despite the class or generational warfare spin put on the changes by Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers, those in the frame are not just the filthy rich Boomers the pair would like us to think are being brought to account.
The Government is trying to set it up as a contest between (subtext — honest) “workers” who get their income from labour, and (sub-text — shifty tax minimisers) those who get income from assets.
How simplistic. Do they not realise many of their favoured “workers”, after slugging their guts out to build up savings would like to build their assets? Or have already done so?
And so while we await the full economic and financial consequences of the Budget, we can ponder one inescapable political consequence.
In one fell (foul?) swoop Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers have let the all-but extinct Liberal Party back into the contest.
And they have handed new Liberal leader Angus Taylor powerful attack lines for the next poll.
Run the quotes from before the 2025 election. Run part of Dr Chalmers’ Budget speech on the tax changes. And add at the end a line about why would you believe anything the pair say?
Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers are not handling the post-Budget heat well.
The Prime Minister stumbled as he pushed back against claims the Government is trying to slap a “death tax” on Australians and Dr Chalmers rather wildly accused critics of running an “unhinged scare campaign”.
It is not going too far to suggest that while we are only a week on from the disastrous Budget, the chances of an Albanese/Chalmers pairing taking Labor to the next election already look much reduced.
