Paul Murray: Bungled release of a Treasury briefing note has laid bare the lie of Labor election promises

Does anybody else feel that the farther we get from the May Federal election the more it appears to have been a charade?

It’s not only that the campaign didn’t directly address so many of the compelling issues facing the nation – like the fact that Canberra spends more than we earn.

But the very few substantial things that were promised are quickly falling apart.

The bungled release last week of a new Treasury briefing note — risibly attached to a Freedom of Information reply that the Albanese Government tried to retract when it realised it distressingly disclosed real information — has shown how hollow our election-based democracy has become.

It exposed that the pre-election Budget was built on lies and that one of Labor’s few meaningful policies — the promise to build 1.2 million new homes — has already been deemed by the Treasury to be unachievable.

Treasury tells Treasurer Jim Chalmers in the post-election note that his new Budget is unsustainable and he will have to raise taxes, invent new ones and cut spending to fix it.

Unmentioned in Chalmers’ Budget speech or in the five weeks of campaigning by Albanese afterwards. Unsurprisingly. But disingenuously.

Chalmers’ told Australians the opposite: “This Budget is our plan for a new generation of prosperity in a new world of uncertainty.”

Why would anyone trust anyone elected on that basis when the truth has rolled in so closely behind?

A government that built an election around the Budget’s vote-buying income tax cuts now has to raise other taxes to pay for them. And doesn’t know how to do it.

The defining image of the campaign was Albanese waving his Medicare card, saying it was the only one people needed to pay for a visit to their doctor.

Within weeks of the polls, we find out the Department of Health has informed its minister that Labor’s centrepiece election policy does not offer “sufficient incentive” for doctors to join the amended Medicare bulk-billing program.

Are we to believe that was unknown before the election?

“The warning was delivered alongside damning modelling that estimated nearly 25 per cent of clinics would not be drawn into the cornerstone of Labor’s campaign agenda through the current financial sweeteners being offered by the Albanese Government,” The Australian reported this week.

So a quarter of us at least will need a credit card — or cash — to pay the doctor’s bill. Not what we were told.

Albanese’s key election policy makes a bad situation worse. Bulk-billing rates in WA fell from 83.5 per cent in 2022 to 70.5 per cent in 2024 — all under his watch. And Labor owns Medicare?

Labor’s real plans for this term were based on running a Seinfeld election. A show about nothing.

How it managed to achieve the biggest parliamentary majority in our history from the lowest primary vote ever to return a government is a perversion of our preferential voting system. It has to be made optional to be fair.

But the election resolved none of Australia’s pressing problems because it didn’t focus on them. Why? Are Labor’s real intentions not popular with most Australians?

Anthony Albanese spent much of the campaign frightening voters about what he fantasised the Coalition would do if it won. Consequently, we found out very little about what he intended to do.

This is the playbook of the Fabian socialists. Just get elected on a plausible platform and then move to the real agenda. Fabianism achieves incremental advances of Marxism by quietly embedding a radical ideology within the existing system, hopefully without public realisation.

You’re the frog in the pot. Another three years to be cooked.

On reflection the campaign was aimless. The voters were bystanders, waiting for crumbs to hang on to what is clearly an unsustainable standard of living.

It was worse for West Australians than the rest of the nation because we had already gone through a turgid State election campaign. People switched off.

The most obvious failure of the Federal election campaign was its inability to give voters a true picture of our economic future. What’s the point of political debate if it can’t achieve that?

The government dissembled at best and straight-out lied at worst about its management of the economy. The Opposition not only failed to expose the Government’s failures but almost wilfully offered no plan for a better future.

In short, our political system let everyone down. Labor hid its real intentions. The Liberals betrayed the aspirations of conservative voters and anyone having second thoughts about Albanese.

The documents erroneously released to the ABC as part of an FoI request contained a series of headings — with the detail redacted — which showed Treasury’s advice to Chalmers to make the Budget sustainable: lift taxes and cut spending.

“Reform of the tax system is necessary to strengthen economic resilience and the fiscal position,” one heading said. That means new taxes.

Chalmers is prepared to tax unrealised capital gains, starting with superannuation. There’s a clear generational aspect to that grab. Baby boomers are a target.

What’s next? The family home? Death duties?

Chalmers opened his Budget speech with peppered references to one specific policy: “We are tackling the housing shortage from every responsible angle. Making home ownership more affordable for young Australians and young families in particular.

“Our $33 billion plan will help build 1.2 million new homes before the decade is out.”

Treasury’s post-election conclusion: “Won’t be met.”

Chalmers is the worst-possible Treasurer for the times. He is so obviously a political populist when we need an economic realist.

The country will go nowhere while he is driving the bus with a Prime Minister who is happy to be a passenger as long as he can enjoy the view from the front seats.

We have reached the stage where very few Australians believe that the political process can fix our problems. Elections are now only about conferring power, however unearned, rather than setting out a blueprint for our future.

Labor was allowed to use the same dishonest approach to its Medicare scare campaign on energy policy. There was little effort by the media to restrain Albanese’s wild lies about the cost of the Coalition’s nuclear promise.

The result is that the most promising low-emissions option to decarbonise the energy sector affordably and reliably is now untouchable for another generation.

The Albanese Government’s absolute foolishness of doubling down on the rash funding of green hydrogen is symbolic of its wrong-headed approach to the energy transition: ideology over reason. Hopefully they are not so gullible about Andrew Forrest’s belief that China is a friend.

At a time when Labor across the nation is hell-bent on increasing the role and size of government, there is mounting evidence that government is no longer competent to save us.

The fact that so many Australians seem to believe that more government is the answer is testament to how disengaged they are from the reasons for the failure.

The cause the rise of the “political class”. When Australia was successful, it was run by people who had experience of the real world. The nation is now overwhelmingly run by people who only know – and care about – politics.

Along the way, they destroyed the senior public service, while increasing its numbers, by politicising it and replacing independence with partisanship. Quite an achievement.

Unscrambling this mess is probably impossible. Too much damage has been done to our institutions.

It is unsurprising that the Liberal vote remains stagnant as shown in post-election opinion polls. The party has yet to officially explain the reasons for its appallingly bad election campaign and since its defeat has continued to show more concern for its own affairs than that of the nation.

But it’s early days and Labor will have time to enjoy the glow of victory before the shine inevitably comes off as economic reality presses in.

This faltering country’s future will ultimately be decided in crisis as unchecked overspending on things like the NDIS demand new taxes and the net zero cult continues to force up energy prices which are destroying our standard of living — something most Australians appear content to ignore.

Chalmers has flipped a mooted productivity talkfest into something broader in an attempt to find solutions to the policy stagnation. Ever since 2007 every one of these Labor events has been a dud.

Unfortunately, this one is already under pressure from Labor’s union controllers who dislike the implications of “productivity” and are likely to block the sort of changes needed. Early talk of shorter working weeks for the same pay suggests any effective reform is unlikely.

The last time Labor was able to bring about real economic progress was 40 years ago when Bob Hawke formed a compact with union leader Bill Kelty that set the nation forward for two decades.

There are no signs that such leadership exists today.