With the Prime Minister expected to call the election as early as tomorrow, Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech this evening is the most important of his political career.
He needs it to land successfully to halt any momentum Labor might build post budget. There was already a sense before the budget that the electoral contest was tightening since mid-term polls that put the Coalition out in front.
Even Anthony Albanese’s lower personal ratings have marginally ticked up.
As Daily Mail exclusively revealed, the centre piece of Dutton’s speech is a $6billion halving of fuel taxes for all motorists for the coming 12 months. For two car families that’s likely to save them $1,500.
It is unashamedly an attempt to overshadow Labor’s one per cent cut to the bottom marginal income tax rate, not due to take effect for another 15 months.
An election battle is brewing between the major parties as they fight to convince ns who are doing it tough that they have a better plan to address cost of living challenges.
While the fuel tax cut does trump a minimalist income tax cut that doesn’t even cover the impact of bracket creep, neither major party bribe does anything to address the structural deficit in the budget.
In fact the many other spending decisions contained in the budget – from health to energy rebates to new money for housing – only makes ‘s fiscal plight even worse.
But in a rare show of bipartisanship both major parties seem to agree that the best course of action politically is to kick the reforming can down the road, certainly until after the looming election campaign.
Economists vehemently disagree.
I’m not sure if Dutton can afford NOT to use tonight’s speech as a marker for what needs to change. While it would be risky to flag the need for budget repair ahead of the campaign, it undoubtedly needs to be the biggest priority of whoever wins government for the coming three years.
Put simply, what’s the point of winning this election without securing a clear mandate to fix the finances?
Labor has delivered its spendathon budget, and in doing so it has already walked away from doing anything serious to repair the budget bottom line in re-elected.
That is supremely negligent. It has left a void Dutton can fill this evening, if he’s bold enough to do it. He can frame his speech around the shocking economic neglect of Labor, such that it no longer cares about the need to stop living beyond its means.
To be successful Dutton will need to attack Labor’s economic management over the last three years, asking voters if they seriously see their situations improving were the government to be granted three more years in power.
But he also needs to present a viable alternative pathway.
ns’ living standards are declining. Basic essentials have become too expensive for some families to afford. Dutton can hammer these points home in his budget reply, pointing out thatAlbanese’s priorities were all wrong when he made the Voice referendum his number one priority after winning the 2022 election.
But to thereafter be successful in a two horse political race, the Opposition Leader will need to outline some sort of alternative plan. To prove that he can do better, because protest votes against a government only translates into shifting support come election time when the alternative appears viable.
Especially when trying to oust a one-term government, something that hasn’t happened since 1931.
Put simply if Dutton doesn’t take a few risks he won’t win. Labor will lose its majority, but not lose the election, and will enter a second term as a minority government.
Tonight’s speech is therefore the most important of Dutton’s life because winning the election remains possible, even if it’s more likely that Albo narrowly scraps home.
It therefore is a key moment in Dutton’s bid to become PM.
To be seriously on the cards, however, he needs to force commentators and the public to sit up and take notice of what he has to say this evening. To shift momentum back his way and turn the coming weeks into a slow political bleed for Labor.
Albo isn’t much of a campaigner, we know that from the 2022 election when Labor’s best week on the trail came when Albo was forced to rest up at home with Covid, allowing others to take the lead.
There is therefore a fair chance that Albo has another lacklustre campaign, feeling the pressure and stumbling early, like he didn’t last time on day one when he didn’t know what the cash rate was.
The best way Dutton can put the PM under pressure so that similar stumbles happen is by knocking tonight’s speech out of the park.