In modern day Australian politics, there is a fiction that is masquerading as a fact, and it goes something like this – “When the government creates a new way to take more money from us, to spend as it pleases, it must first come up with a plausible baddie.”

Now this bad guy might be a rampant wealthy capitalist, a sneaky foreign businessman, a nasty dole bludger, a big fat retiree, or all of the above (if it is possible and can be easily drawn in caricature). Whatever form this baddie takes, it is never represented as you or me, or the hard working Aussie family, or the young student looking to get ahead in the world, or the scientist looking for a new cure. And yet it seems to be all those “good guys” who end up paying for whatever new spending initiatives the government of the day designs, as the “bad guys” prove hard to locate, if indeed they ever existed.

This fiction has found its way into all the treasury forecasts and government ramblings that support the annual budget farce. The fiction grows even larger in the opposition’s annual budget reply, where no claim can be tested and every promise can be exaggerated – and is! The pantomime is supported by a range of theatrical events variously titled “budget lock up”, “national press club luncheon”, “Independent media analysis”, “parliamentary question time”, etc etc. But no-one asks the obvious question – “If your forecasts from last year ended up being off by $30 billion after 9 months, why on earth would I give any credence to a forecast based on ten years modelling by those same hard working boffins?”

Of course, the answer to that question is “no-one should”. The budget has become a joke. No longer a financial plan for the future, it is now simply a format for making promises, to test voter response and determine the most opportune time to call an election.

My parents always said it was polite to ask before taking another cookie from the cookie jar – and the asking alone is not enough. You have to wait for an answer. Well my answer is NO! No more new spending initiatives – no more new taxes – no more government interventions – until the debt is paid off. Only then can you come cap in hand to once again test my sense of civic duty. Until then – “get your hands off my property!”