Tell Me This Isn’t a Labor Government

Tax and spend, break promises… tell me this isn’t a Labor government.

During the election campaign, Labor promised everything from tax cuts to cost-of-living reductions — including a specific promise to cut power bills by $275. Every single promise has been broken or is about to be. And spending keeps soaring.

Who could have foreseen it?

In a speech in Brisbane on Friday, Jim Chalmers will reveal his October budget must navigate spending growth of 12.1 per cent per year for the NDIS and 14 per cent increases in the cost of servicing commonwealth debt over the next four years.

Warning of intensifying fiscal pressures and projected deficits “over the forwards and beyond”, the Treasurer will say that defence spending is forecast to rise by 4.4 per cent a year, hospital funding by 6.1 per cent a year and aged-care assistance by 5 per cent a year out to 2026-27.

In a draft copy of his address, Dr Chalmers said this represented spending that was “either desirable or unavoidable, or both – and must be paid for”.

Don’t be fooled: that “Dr” isn’t a medical degree, and certainly not for economics. It’s for “political science”, an oxymoron if there ever was. Zippy is possibly the least qualified Australian Treasurer since Whitlam appointed a literal Marxist to the job. He’s supported by a Finance Minister with a BA in sociology.

And the spending is only “unavoidable” because of yet another brain-fart policy by a previous Labor socialist PM. From the instant Julia Gillard announced the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Blind Freddy could see that it would quickly become yet another welfare monster, gobbling billions in taxpayer’s money.

But nobody could have foreseen just what a Welfare Godzilla Gillard was creating — mostly because its true cost was hidden from budget scrutiny by being pushed out years hence.

Well, now Godzilla has emerged from the sea and is rampaging across the fiscal landscape. The NDIS is on track to dwarf even Medicare, costing some $30 billion a year. That’s also more than Defence and Education. The only budgetary monster bigger than the NDIS is Welfare.

Cue another broken promise.

As the Albanese government mulls the political fallout of breaking an election promise by ditching or modifying the already legislated stage-three tax cuts, Dr Chalmers said his guiding principle would be “following the responsible path — not the path of least resistance”.

Just six months ago, Anthony Albanese explicitly promised that “we’re not going to interfere with the legislated tax cuts”.

Another Rudd-Gillard zombie is also stirring in the deep.

The Treasurer also said revisiting the petroleum resource rent tax to capture more revenue was not a priority.

In other words, they’re just weeks away from announcing it.

Dr Chalmers said the October 25 budget would also include a new and “credible fiscal strategy that we intend to stick with”.

The Australian

“Credible fiscal strategy” is possibly the funniest zinger that could come out of Zippy’s mouth.

If only it were a laughing matter.