(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

When I think of Scott Morrison — and to some extent Anthony Albanese — I’m reminded of big-talking boyfriends who never quite deliver on their promises. Diamonds that ended up cheap zirconia.

And it’s illustrated with startling clarity with each election, and each budget. 

At a first and superficial glance, tonight’s budget looks like the impetus to lift us all — diamonds everywhere. A faster rail line from Sydney to Newcastle. Help with the cost of living, with fuel excise at top of mind. A national offenders’ register. Millions for missiles. A childcare subsidy. A lure for international tourists. Massive defence recruitment. A submarine base. Environmental initiatives that span from the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland to the forests of Tasmania.

Everyone wins. Millions thrown at domestic violence intervention and suicide prevention. More money than you can poke a stick at will go into infrastructure projects. Health and education too will get a boost.

And that promise of diamonds will be the starter’s pistol on a poll Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg desperately hope will see the Coalition reelected.

But here’s the pinch. None of that is really aimed at growing our nation and beating the challenges posed by a pandemic, natural disasters and innovation. It’s about winning our votes.

This is a campaign budget. Not a future budget.

In fairness, the Coalition didn’t think up this modus operandi. It is almost always the case in state and federal politics that the budget closest to the election is more about charting the government’s future than the country’s.

The problem here is the massive opportunity cost of what is not delivered with this old-school, traditional cyclical and cynical style of thinking and service delivery.

Politics must be the last bastion of society that hasn’t had disruption shape a way of thinking where strategy and culture envelop the whole process, not individual divisions that in this case partition the environment from education and health from infrastructure.

So yes, the environment will have a win. So will health. And so will voters in various electorates. But is that visionary government? Will that ad hoc division of funds in any way forge a new future? Or will it just slap bandaids on where they are desperately needed?

How could this budget deliver a new future for our youth — young men and women who have spent almost three years treading water, missing key milestones, fighting mental health challenges, studying from home, and trapped in isolation?

This doesn’t mean just fixing the year-long wait for a psychologist’s visit. It means fundamentally looking at the school and university systems, the curriculum and how it is delivered, apprenticeships and courses to ensure they are fit for an uncertain future. It might mean partnering with Mental Health Australia, for example, to reduce suicide deaths by 25% by 2025.

It means talking to 16-year-olds who are skipping school, or studying until 1am, fearful of a future they can’t imagine. About 600,000 people will vote for the first time this election; a genuine across-the-board strategy aimed at the young would not just deliver for them, but all of us.

How could this budget deliver a cure for cancer? That sounds a bit Mary Poppins-like, but could it be possible if we wanted it badly enough? How could a government, hell-bent on making a difference, coerce the universities and the best scientific minds to work together with funds that would not run out in a year?

No matter how bright we are, cancer will not be cured while scientists and researchers are given an annual contract or paid by individual research project. Imagine a budget legacy that meant a new way of thinking and delivering research funding. 

Or what if we spent serious funds looking at domestic violence? I don’t mean the state auctions we have now on who can get the most publicity after another heartbreaking murder, but a sustained and funded conviction to being the world leader in making women safe.

Imagine that.

Is this the fault of political parties? Politicians in power? Or us, as voters? Are we demanding the same standard of our politicians as we do from those around us?

This post-budget election by itself will cost about $400 million. The question — like ones we’ve all pondered with a new boyfriend, surely — has to be: is this what I really want?