Talking points
- You might have imagined we had grown weary of tossing money at everything that moved. We were just practising.
- A freight hub? A nice new road? A railway? No probs.
- Plenty of other lucky dips are available.
Mr Speaker,
Tonight, as we gather, polls rage across the nation, predicting dire straits for the government I would dearly love to lead one day.
But we are resilient people. We have faced down frightening challenges before – you might recall Bill Shorten, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
The price of petrol these days can induce agitation.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone
Still, I’m told by those who have to do their own weekly shop at Woolies that the price of mince can prompt considerable pause for thought these days. And those poor sods who have to pay for their own petrol? Some say a trip to the servo can cause dancing in an agitated manner around the bowser.
We all know where pause for thought and agitated dancing can lead.
We can’t have that at a time like this. Not when there are numbers to be listed soon on slips of paper in the quiet sanctity of polling booths.
For these urgent reasons, I present not simply a budget tonight, but an economic plan so vast in its expenditure it can be understood only by a single word.
SeatKeeper.
You might have imagined we had grown weary of tossing money at everything that moved during the plague, or didn’t move at all. The truth is we were merely practising with projects such as the over-generous JobSeeker and the glorious JobKeeper.
Some of my colleagues wanted to call tonight’s masterstroke JobKeeper 2.0, but I felt it could seem unsubtle to attach such a brand to a plan designed to keep our own jobs from going down the gurgler.
Care for some new train lines?Credit:Louise Kennerley
SeatKeeper, on the other hand, has a touch of nation-building about it, if you say it quickly.
It works like this.
You live in a marginal or particularly restive electorate, we look after you with some tasty infrastructure. A freight hub? A nice new road? A railway? No probs. It’s simply a matter of billions.
In return, you put those numbers in the right order at the polling booth and everyone’s happy. Particularly those of us who keep our seats.
Meanwhile, there’s the business of bowsers and supermarkets. We’re cutting the fuel excise for everyone who drives, just as the sainted John Howard did back in 2001 when he was copping it. As the thrifty used to say, take care of the cents and the dollars will look after themselves, though it might cost a billion or so.
And the supermarket? Why, we’ll pay for a couple of trips for the weekly shopping. Help yourself to extra servings of mince! Just remember where they came from.
It’s inflation busting in the cause of SeatKeeping. For now, which is the point.
Plenty of other lucky dips are available. Billions for defence and cyberwarfare against that unmentionable northern nation that keeps us afloat by buying our natural resources.
More billions to get first home buyers into a market that has locked them out courtesy of our housing-bubble economic miracle.
And in the interests of this government’s commitment to the environment, tonight’s voluminous SeatKeeper budget papers are printed on recyclable paper.
They will be recycled as early as this weekend.
The tastiest bits will be reprinted on shiny coloured pamphlets, available at special events across the land over the next five weeks, and at a polling station near you.
Thank you.
Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.
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