EDITORIAL: Political spin continues to pull wool over the eyes of Australian voters

Budgets, according to Jim Chalmers’ hero Paul Keating, have always been about the fundamentals.

In the Keating era, that meant the economic fundamentals. The messaging — the sell, the spin — was important, of course it was, but the crusading 1990s treasurer was big on facts.

Keating was an economic powerhouse, a reformer, a parliamentary and press gallery brawler and a passionate advocate who would snap with fury and frustration when his dopey colleagues and deadbeat journalists couldn’t grasp the big picture, couldn’t get their head around the ‘J-curve’ or wouldn’t take the mission to modernise Australia and its economy seriously.

Keating was driven by power, absolutely, but he was a political leader who wanted to actually do something with it. He was not content to occupy high office for the trappings or the clout.

He wanted to educate Australians in order to convince them that the track he was on, the roads he was paving, were the pathways to the future he wanted all of us to traverse.

Keating craved the conversation. He lived for the fight. He strived to lift the standard of public debate — albeit at times debasing it through brutal and mostly brilliant put-downs.

He did that because he believed in what he was trying to do. He wasn’t afraid of the consequences. He backed himself in, and won, every time. Well until he didn’t.

In modern politics, politicians, like Chalmers and his boss Anthony Albanese, are timid. Power is everything to them. They are so gripped by fear of losing it that they jump at shadows, skip over cracks and do whatever they can to avoid having honest conversations with the voting public.

Australians are a nuisance to our modern political leaders because they don’t get it, will never understand; and if they did, they certainly wouldn’t vote for them.

This is the tragedy of this Budget, and of the political landscape we find ourselves in. Chalmers doesn’t want to be fair dinkum about the numbers in the budget so he chooses spin over substance. He chooses bravado and balderdash over bravery.

This Budget is designed with one intention — to pull the wool over the eyes of Australian voters who mostly, and who can blame them, are paying absolutely no attention to the bellicose bullshit coming out of Canberra.

Unlike Keating who was hoping to find like-minded souls to come along with him for the wild ride of turning the Australian economy into a modern little miracle, Chalmers hopes for the opposite.

He doesn’t want Australians to understand the numbers, to get excited about the fundamentals, to embrace the challenge and come along for the ride.

Chalmers wants Australians to hear “tax cuts” and “free” GP visits and “cheap” medicines and “energy rebates”. No matter that the tax cuts are a joke and make a mockery of the Keating reform agenda — tackling bracket creep and delivering sustainable budgets.

He is banking on, and exploiting, the disengaged and the disinterested.