Political editor Rikki Lambert has been calling it 'politicians' Christmas' as the wish lists roll in, but will there be lumps of coal in stockings or disappointment tantrums on Tuesday night?
COVID-19 has dented the fanfare of what used to surround Budget Week in Canberra, with politicians past, present and aspiring, lobbyists, hangers-on and tragics piling in to Aussies' Cafe and other corners of Parliament House in Canberra. All would gather hopeful - or perhaps in some cases in the know on the sly - that they would get from the man in the big red - no business - suit the goodies they were after.
In this sense, for the Budget regulars recent budgets have been like the night before Christmas, when all through the House, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse - or RAT, perhaps.
The big discussion before Tuesday night's federal budget was cost of living pressures, with the focus principally on a temporary cut to the fuel excise to ease bowser pain for motorists.
Whilst one would think talk of a cut to beer prices wasn't a 'cost of living' relief, some Coalition backbenchers were pushing hard for a cut to one of the 'sin taxes'. In an election that all polls indicate the Liberal-National government will lose, cheaper beer before could be one rabbit PM Morrison tries to pull out of the hat. Or at least see drinkers raise a glass in the Coalition's memory.
Tony Pasin, Liberal MP for the federal seat of Barker, in South Australia's south east was gleefully waiting for Santa Frydenberg after making his pitch for the federal government to fund 100 per cent of the cost of new mobile phone towers. The backbench MP told Flow that other regional MPs were in on the letter-writing prayers to Saint Nicholas (so to speak) but neighbouring Mallee Nationals MP Anne Webster didn't know anything about it.
Even so, Dr Webster was crowing on Christmas Eve - sorry Budget Eve - with $45 million allocated to improve the Sunraysia Highway. It pales into significance to the $5 billion or more announced for a dam at Hells Gate north west of Townsville, but Dr Webster's seat is nowhere near as marginal (or so one might think) as those precious coastal Queensland seats.
Independent candidate for Mallee, Sophie Baldwin, called for a freeze of the whole fuel excise, while South Australian wantaway independent senator Rex Patrick had been calling for the excise to be halved.
Peak bodies representing motorists and farmers were negative about bowser relief through fuel excise, with the RAA of SA noting that in 2012/13 the then Rudd government was only spending less than 40 per cent of the excise revenue on land transport infrastructure. The VFF president Emma Germano told Flow last week that the budget papers had this trending upwards to 100 per cent in the next financial year.
Intriguingly, Ms Germano also called for fuel rationing and greater public transport use so farmers had the fuel they needed. The Russia-Ukraine driven oil price spike may have driven renewed interest towards the battery and hybrid end of the car market, but some advocates pointed out that fuel excise relief (as is widely expected) would assist wealthier Australians that had more motor vehicles. Those on lower incomes, the argument went, relied on public transport in the cities more.
This is the best clue that the federal government will hedge its bets - or buttress itself from criticism - by providing both:
fuel excise relief and
declaring a continued Turnbullian expansion into funding public transport and rail infrastructure to get more bang for the diesel buck.
Specifically on its infrastructure promises as of early Monday afternoon:
Extra spending for states and territories: Queensland ($3.9 billion), NSW ($3.3 billion), Victoria ($3.3 billion), SA ($2.8 billion), WA ($2.1 billion), Tasmania ($639 million), ACT ($51 million), NT ($361 million)
$500 million for Urannah dam in central Queensland
$678 million for the sealing of 1000km of the Outback Way
$2.26 billion for Adelaide's North-South corridor motorway
$40 million for bridges
$74 million top-up for Perth city deal
$668 million for southeast Queensland city deal
$5.4 billion for Hells Gates dam in north Queensland
The over-representation of South Australia and Queensland on a per capita basis in these figures bears reflection. In the former's case, much would have been committed before the State election in an effort to help the woeful Marshall Liberal government earn a second term in office. In Queensland's case, it is at best a canny attempt at winning marginal seats to hang on to office. At worst, it is the very pork-barrelling Labor has frequently complained of.
Infrastructure minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce hailed that the budget would provide for $17.9 billion in spending over 10 years on infrastructure. The closer they get to a perilous federal election, the more the Coalition sounds like the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments they pilloried. The budget and forward estimates only go 4 years into the future, and Labor criticised 'cuts' to education and health that were in their 10-year plans, not 4-year funding commitments before leaving office.
Federal Labor shadow infrastructure spokesperson Catherine King was dark on 'Christmas' Eve about claims from Barnaby Joyce that the government was investing. The ALP member for Ballarat said:
"It’s the same story every year, with big sounding announcements that promise a better future but in the end amount to nothing more than pork barrels, cost blowouts, project delays or cancellations.
"Over the first eight years of this Government, its broken promises in infrastructure alone totalled an incredible $7.4 billion.
"That is over a billion dollars of broken infrastructure promises in each and every Budget."
The big question will be whether the budget offers any signals on longer-term structural reform on the security front to help Australia to be more self-reliant. Structural budget reform is off the agenda for now, but big spending in infrastructure could stimulate an economy looking to pull out of a recession that has been driven by COVID-19 related restrictions. Fuel and food security are beginning to emerge as key issues in regional Australia, as is the adequacy of mobile phone coverage in an increasingly connected world.
Fuel security and the secure access to agricultural supplies such as fertiliser - itself reliant on fossil fuels - could see coal indeed in some Christmas stockings, or at least a mixed bag of coal, gas, wind, solar, pumped hydro, batteries et cetera. Don't search the bottom of the stocking for yellowcake - nuclear energy - in that mix, as only the boldest of governments (of which we have seen none in recent years) would throw that nugget in the budget stocking.
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