The great temptation with a Budget is to politicise it. It is painful to hear the Opposition whine on and on and on about how the deficit that this Budget will inevitably have is caused by bad fiscal management.
The truth is that even the most dyed in the wool liberal isn'tgoing to accept that as fact. It is clear (as always) that we are a tin-pot little country, totally at the whim of the winds of the super-economies. China sneezes and we catch a cold...or something like that.
So it makes Turnbull, Hockey and Bishop just seem pathetic when they whine on in this way. They are continually challenged to say what they would do if they were in power (and they aren't) they never answer the question. They only ever say, our job is to make sure that every dollar (over) spent is spent as well as it can be.
This begs all sorts of questions.
Equally well the government needs to be wary of using the economic crisis to justify its incompetence. I personally don't think we are seeing incompetence, but they do need to recognise that they should not use super rationalisations such as "the global crisis" to begin a pattern of treating the electorate with contempt and assuming they can dish up any old potage and it will do. We have had enough of being so treated by the former regime.
Would that things were different. But they are not.
Would that the present government would not just slip into patting the voters on the head and saying "there there".
On the whole I find the performance of both sides pretty lacklustre to date.
Me old mate Tom Merton warns from the isolation of the cloister
Today, with the enormous amplifications of news and opinion, we are suffering from more than acceptable distortions of perspective.
I think many would agree.
