Can anyone think of a more efficient way to waste trees than printing copies of the Budget on the eve of an election?

While waiting for it to be released, we were treated to pictures of Jim Chalmers sitting on a windowsill, as if the empty chairs scattered in front of him were outside his tax bracket.

Years ago, when I was enthusiastic about the sincerity of politicians, I read the Budget cover-to-cover. This was back when I used to make the odd appearance on Sky News Australia and I wanted to be properly prepared for my five minutes of screen time.

The effort was wasted. Despite being a Liberal government, the Budget was tedious, vague, preposterous, wasteful, insulting, and featured unhinged assumptions about private sector productivity. Then the government was dis-invited from power and the whole thing went into the shredder.

Now, I wait for other poor sods to sacrifice their sanity on the Budget. Michael de Percy was this year’s victim.

Under Labor, the Budgets have not improved. The purpose of Jim Chalmers’ Budget last night was not to salvage Australia’s economy but rather to be divvied up and used as fodder for election slogans. Don’t believe me? Skim through Labor’s social media accounts. They are more interested in how things look in bold typeface than what these woefully costed thought bubbles will achieve in reality.

While vapid, it is a winning strategy. Young voters consume almost no traditional media (newspapers, radio, TV) and comprise a large enough group to tip elections. Their campaign exposure is almost solely drawn from social media and yet we have prominent Liberal MPs who haven’t posted for over a year.

Labor is pushing out slick, synchronised campaign messaging and it’s sinking in. Today, they found their cut-through message and have successfully used it to tear the Liberal Party apart in a way that might very well cripple them.

With a straight face, Labor has branded itself the party of tax cuts.

And people believe them.

People are poorer than they were ten years ago.

And they still believe them.

Not only are Labor basking in their new identity as the party of tax cuts, they have made the Liberals come out against tax cuts.

Independent media are standing in the background shouting, ‘It’s a trap!!!’ in Dutton’s direction, but he hasn’t heard them.

While trying to appear like calculated and eminently sensible economic managers, the Coalition’s lack of charisma and communication has damaged them. The next set of polls will probably reflect this.

Intellectual arguments – a comfortable default for conservatives – are pointless. They have the strength of paper to a fire.

The Prime Minister is rapid-firing his freebies at voters while posting mug shots of the Opposition over (what Dutton calls) a $5 dollar per week tax cut…

‘We’ll give our Budget reply on Thursday night,’ said Mr Dutton, calmly.

Meanwhile, the internet is filling up with more of this:

Even the ABC can see that Chalmers’ is playing snake charmer to Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor.

‘The government introduced legislation for the tax cuts to Parliament early on Wednesday, in a bid to force the Coalition to promise to repeal the cuts if it wins the election,’ wrote the ABC.

To which Chalmers’ added, ‘To vote against this legislation would be to stand in the way of more hard-earned money staying in the pockets of every hard-working Australian.’

Never mind that Labor are the ones doing all the pick-pocketing.

The Coalition are free to vote against the tax cuts, but doing so in relative silence is a bad idea. And yes, I know all the arguments for keeping campaign cards close to one’s chest, but this is a different era, these are different voters, and information travels at a different rate. Once voters get into their minds that Dutton is against tax cuts, they may never listen to his campaign pitch later, especially if it’s largely delivered via their favourite media giants Sky News Australia and The Australian rather than social media.

Dutton calling the tax cuts a ‘hoax’ is great, but he needs to channel a little but of Trumpian, or even Farageian, politics to get on top of this messaging or tax cuts will become the election.

Andrew Clennell did a better job with his passive-aggressive question to the laughing Treasurer. After reading some of the Treasurer’s old quotes back to him, he finished with:

‘You’ve just delivered a Budget which forecasts a decade of deficits, a trillion dollars of debt, the next four deficits of $179 billion. My question, Treasurer, is do you feel like a hypocrite today?’

If I were the media adviser to the Liberal Party, I’d have that soundbite on repeat.

Do you feel like a hypocrite today?

Over and over and over.

In the meantime, I am going to choose to identify as the most privileged minority featured in the Budget – a pair of pandas at Adelaide Zoo who are sitting pretty on $3.8 million for the next five years. Sounds good to me.

Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.