Illustration: michaelmucci.com
This was the week Labor's hope seemed to snap.
Even though we already knew the mining tax was unlikely to raise anything like the $2 billion predicted in October, confirmation last week that it had raised only $126 million in its first six months undermined so many of Labor's economic lines.
Yes, declining commodity prices and the high Australian dollar played a part in the lower than expected revenue take.
But state royalties - not calculated in the same way but in large part also linked to mineral value - did not decline by nearly so much compared with forecasts at the beginning of last year. In Western Australia, they were down 10 per cent; in NSW, 26 per cent. The federal mining tax is raising about 90 per cent less than the Treasury forecast.
Even taking into account that profit-based taxes are supposed to be more sensitive to price, there is clearly something else going on here.
And the Treasury secretary, Martin Parkinson, helped us understand what - he had not been able to calculate the value of the writeoffs available because of the way miners were allowed to value their assets in the behind-closed-doors deal they did with Wayne Swan. That, and the gapingly obvious loophole caused by the treatment of state royalties mean the tax is unlikely to raise a lot of money for many years.
How does Labor argue that people are entitled to a share of the nation's mineral riches, that they are ''spreading the benefits of the boom'', when its mining tax is reaping such a measly helping of benefits to share?
How does it continue to argue that Tony Abbott goes ''on bended knee'' to the mining billionaires when it is now so obvious that Julia Gillard and Swan got comprehensively out-negotiated by the three big miners in the 2010 mining tax deal?
And most tellingly, how does Gillard ''turn the blowtorch on Tony'' - and his lack of credible costings (which was her whole strategy at the start of the election year and the reason behind her decision to name the date in advance) when at least until the budget there are so many questions over her own fiscal strategy.
The meagre mining tax makes it so much harder for Labor to make what should be a strong economic case - that we have low unemployment (5.4 per cent), low inflation (2.2 per cent) and relatively strong economic growth (3.1 per cent).
It makes it so much easier for the Coalition to avoid damage from revelations of half-thought through interventionist policies such as tax breaks for remote regions and hugely expensive thought bubbles about dams.
This may change after the budget when the government will reveal how it intends to pay for its big ticket spending items on education and disability, both over the forward estimates and in the longer term, and the Coalition will have run out of excuses.
But that assumes Labor has the will to push ahead with real spending cuts - for example in superannuation - against the already fierce opposition from the industry and from a position of political weakness.
As things stand, both parties have promised their numbers will add up without yet producing evidence to prove that they can.
And, without wanting to add to the leadership speculation that is once again starting, the present political dynamic reweighs the calculation as Labor backbenchers compare their distaste for any thought of another leadership change with their growing political despair. Each question time this week, they seemed to slump a little lower in their chairs.
Meanwhile, both sides of politics are going through the motions of rolling out the same lightweight policy nonsense we get most election years, as if this slow-motion train smash isn't happening in the biggest and most important of policy debates.
In 2004, the Howard government announced a $20 million ''national community crime prevention program'' to pay for CCTVs and street lights that would ''help keep communities safe''.
In 2007, Labor promised a $15 million ''safer suburbs plan'' with similar aims. In 2010, it stumped up another $5.42 million to ''expand'' safer suburbs projects.
Community safety and crime prevention always become a ''thing'' in election years, even though policing and community safety are state responsibilities and the amounts of money offered in the federal programs are a drop in the ocean given the number of street corners upon which someone might get mugged or have their bag snatched.
And it seems this year will continue the triennial ''tough on crime'' tradition.
The Coalition policy concedes that ''by international standards, Australian communities are comparatively safe and we are well served by the dedicated men and women of our various police forces''. But it still promises $50 million for ''safer streets''. As Abbott announced on Thursday that some of that money might be spent in the marginal electorate of Eden-Monaro, the candidate Peter Hendy conceded the electorate was ''a low-crime area'' although there had been an ''uptick'' in some places of late.
Nor is Labor going to cede the easy political points of announcing CCTVs in marginal seats that may or may not need them.
In her speech to the National Press Club last month, Gillard pointed out that ''an Australian is four times less likely to be a victim of homicide than is an American'' but quickly added that ''some communities are understandably concerned about crime and social cohesion''.
Announcing the promotion of the western Sydney MP Jason Clare in her reshuffle, Gillard said ''there are concerns around the nation, including in western Sydney on questions of community safety and community cohesion, and Jason Clare will lead our effort on that'', and Clare has since said the government will have more to say on CCTVs. Of course he will.
The sudden federal interest in CCTVs every election year seems cynical. But the fact that neither major party has a credible fiscal policy just seven months from a federal election is tragic.
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