Analysis

One word in Chalmers's budget speech perhaps went unnoticed, but it could make all the difference for Labor's re-election

There's one word that Australians doing it tough perhaps didn't hear Treasurer Jim Chalmers say in his budget speech this week.

It's an innocuous word, the kind that can easily be missed.

"Treasury is now forecasting inflation could return to target earlier, perhaps even by the end of this year," he said.

Imagine if Winston Churchill had opted for a qualifier like perhaps. 

"We shall perhaps fight on the beaches" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Nor does "I perhaps have a dream" or "I perhaps will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man".

Granted, Chalmers wasn't seeking to go down in the annals of history, at least not with his speech.

The treasurer has found himself in the invidious situation of having much to crow about but few people wanting to praise him for it. 

For the second year in a row, he landed a budget surplus, something those who sit opposite him in the parliament were unable to do once, let alone twice.

Surpluses are so rare in modern Australian history that it's been two decades since a federal government spent less than it earned in consecutive years.

"Look how well my budget is doing" is a hard pill to swallow for people with costs up the wazoo,  who are busy worrying how they're going to be able to keep a roof over their heads and food in their fridges. 

Chalmers' statement was deliberately not definitive — even if voters didn't hear the perhaps.

In doing so, Chalmers has set up a high-stakes gamble that if realised could bring with it a second term for his government. 

Labor's best path to re-election is with inflation easing, the Reserve Bank cutting rates at least once and voters feeling like a corner has been turned. If realised, Chalmers will be seeking the credit.

He'll perhaps be seeking anything but the credit if a pre-Christmas rate doesn't pan out. 

The curious cases of Andrew and Anthony

The headline announcements in the budget were $300 in energy bill relief for all households, capped pricing on PBS-listed medicines and a 10 per cent increase in Commonwealth Rent Assistance. 

Treasury forecasts the bill and rent relief alone will cut 0.5 percentage points off inflation in 2024-25, fuelling Chalmers's optimism that the Reserve Bank could cut rates before the election. 

The Coalition was quick to offer its support for all the government's cost-of-living measures, but that doesn't mean it didn't want to inflict some pain on Labor on the way through. 

Liberal frontbencher Paul Fletcher used Question Time to kill two birds with one stone. Asking a veiled-hypothetical question, he wondered: If we take a typical Australian — let's call him Andrew — who recently had to relocate from Bellevue Hill to Parramatta for work reasons and happens to own five houses, including a newly acquired $12 million beach house at Palm Beach, will he be eligible to receive the rebate on all five houses?

That "typical Australian" sounded a whole lot like first-term Labor MP Andrew Charlton, who bought a house in Sydney's west after being pre-selected for the safe Labor seat. 

Despite supporting the measure, the Coalition have had no qualms in making clear that Australia's richest will be getting the energy bill relief on every house they own, a move Chalmers insists couldn't have been done any other way. Fletcher seemed to have forgotten that there were no shortage of politicians sitting behind him that will also receive a $300 rebate for each of the properties they own beyond their primary residencies. 

Even more problematic for Labor was the revelation on Thursday that financially vulnerable Australians stand to miss out on the full value of the bill relief, because the policy will slash the indexation of their welfare payments. 

The question about "Andrew" wasn't the only "hypothetical" question Labor faced in parliament this week.

Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather framed his question about a TOTALLY RANDOM landlord, who he called Anthony, who had both the power to raise the rent to whatever level he wants and to evict a tenant to sell the property and benefit from capital gains tax discounts.

That had NOTHING to do with the PM having spent his morning explaining why he was booting the tenant in his Sydney rental property so he could sell it (that the tenant used to run a place called The Sausage Factory is a level of information that you simply can't make up).

Albanese, who now lives in the nation's fanciest public housing, deferred the question to the treasurer.

A day earlier he was in no mood to answer independent MP Monique Ryan's question about whether fossil fuel industry lobbyists or representatives were at a $5,000-a-head post-budget dinner that he is said to have attended. 

"I've stood and had the great honour of being the Australian Labor Party candidate in 10 elections. During those 10 elections as the candidate for Grayndler, I have spent less money on those 10 campaigns than the member for Kooyong did in her one," he shot back.

The only issues Albanese has been keen to talk about this week are the measures his government is taking to ease household living costs. 

He blitzed the media from morning to night on Wednesday, doing so in a dashing tie that has long caught the attention of eagle-eyed fashion observers.

The PM is no stranger to wearing the bright orange, embossed number, which we're all but certain is from the French luxury fashion house, Hermes (his office was in no mood to confirm that this week). 

Sadly for those seeking to buy it, the tie is no longer available on the company's website.

At $385, you'd also need more than the value of the energy rebate to pay for it. 

What else we've learned this week

Until this week, Labor's Future Made in Australia has felt more like a vibe than a policy with meat on the bones.

The budget went some way to fattening it up, with Labor outlining a raft of policies to drive investment in green manufacturing in Australia. 

After this week, it's clear that any reports the climate wars are dead have been greatly exaggerated, with our esteemed colleague Annabel Crabb noting the budget offers a preview of the fights to come in the next decade. 

Tensions within Labor are continuing to simmer with backbench senator Fatima Payman breaking ranks to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza, comments Albanese has rebuked.

Late on Thursday the government struck a deal with the Greens to pass new emissions laws for vehicles, in return backing down on its plans to streamline offshore gas approvals.

But there was no deal to be made on laws that Labor, just weeks ago, was insisting were urgent. Instead, the party ended the week quietly delaying its bid to gain extraordinary immigration powers. 

Perhaps the only thing more urgent than getting those powers was not having to talk about immigration detention, a policy that has haunted the government for the last six months, in the week of the budget.