The run-up to a budget always sees a degree of chaos. But this year it has looked like one of those willy willies that blow up in outback Australia when the wind stirs a storm of dust.
A Middle East war, a fuel crisis, another interest rate rise, calls for extra cost-of-living help amid warnings against high government spending, accusations of prime ministerial lying – they are collectively testing the government’s ability to control how it wants to frame its fifth budget.
But the immediate “narrative” it puts on the budget is one thing – more significant in the longer term is getting its settings right in these extraordinarily volatile times, something we’ll only be able to judge in retrospect.
