A ‘caring’ budget would have put productivity first

There is more care than productivity in this budget. Literally. "Care" is one of the most frequently used words in the budget, with 20 mentions, while "productivity" has just four. But without productivity there can be no care.

Yet, if we are to pull ourselves out of the hole we have dug ourselves into, increasing productivity is the most important thing.

While Treasurer Jim Chalmers seeks to forge a link between himself and the "Placido Domingo" of treasurers, Paul Keating, it takes more than growing up in an outer-suburban working-class electorate to make a great treasurer. By the same token, it takes more than being brought up in social housing, the child of a single mother, to make a great prime minister.

From the beginning, Keating was a reformer, the reform made more urgent by the difficult economic circumstances of the time. He was the hardman of his government, second only to the finance minister, Peter Walsh.

In a series of text messages from two weekends ago between Keating and Chalmers, where the treasurer seeks to forge the connection, Keating said he had no need of focus groups.

But it would appear that focus groups, the ones that crafted the policies taken to the last election, and the ones who undoubtedly cast their eye over this budget while it was being fabricated, are designing policy.

If Henry Ford had asked focus groups what they wanted, he would have bred a horse that was lighter, faster, ate less hay, and carried its own manure disposal bag instead of a rickety black vehicle with spindly wheels and a combustion engine. But thank God he didn't.

This budget purports to be faster, lighter, more sustainable, and "caring" when the country needs a new engine with grunt and some tough love.

Tough love is something that Labor can more easily give than the Coalition because of its reputation for being more compassionate.

Nothing to improve productivity problems

The treasurer once appeared to know productivity is the key. Yet, here he is in March this year, addressing the Productivity Commission's report: "If we stay stuck on the current course … future incomes will be 40 percent lower and the working week five percent [2 hours] longer."

On May 10, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC's 7.30 Report that the previous government had been in power for almost 10 years but had lost its way. It seems this one has no way to lose.