Selling a complicated federal budget isn’t exactly child’s play, but Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers could do worse than following the example of their colleague’s toy giraffe and zebra to help explain their contentious tax changes.
The budget fight is dominating parliament and Senate estimates, but it’s being fought just as fiercely online. The weapons of choice? Memes, fluffy animals and a questionable reference to a serial killer cannibal.
Some Labor MPs are quietly concerned they’re losing the public debate, warning of scare campaigns getting “out of hand” and that the government doesn’t “necessarily have a clear strategy on complicated issues”. Polling shows Labor’s key budget measures have so far failed to win over Australians, with many holding significant doubts the changes will make things better.
Albanese and Chalmers, at times, have been visibly tetchy at the public focus on business taxes and trusts. The government wants to drag the debate back to their preferred ground, housing and intergenerational equity.
Enter: Giraffe and Zebra.
“I’m going to talk about negative gearing and capital gains tax the way that I would to my toddler,” the Labor senator Ellie Whiteaker says down the barrel of the camera, breaking down the proposal with the tone of a preschool teacher explaining that one plus one equals two.
As smooth jazz plays in the background, and armed with two soft toys and some fluffy pom-poms, the Western Australian first-termer explains the tenant-landlord relationship between the African herbivores, and how Labor wants to make it so “Giraffe pays a little bit more tax on his investments to give Zebra a real shot at owning his own home”.
Setting aside the grandfathering, which would mean Giraffe would still be allowed to negatively gear any existing investment property he owns (even if Zebra stays living in the rental), breaking down the complicated tax changes in easy-to-understand language for the regular punter is something that has sometimes been missing in the fortnight since the budget.
The budget sell has been somewhat derailed by memes and AI from startup founders – hardly the biggest opponent Labor would have been preparing for.
Labor has had more than a decade since Bill Shorten’s first attempt in 2016 to war game strategies and responses to the CGT and negative gearing changes. But the media response to some of the changes – won’t someone please think of the poor Porsche owners of Australia? – has infuriated some inside the government.
The Sunrise host Natalie Barr last week claimed the government had “a messaging problem” – until the housing minister, Clare O’Neil, explained that grandfathering of negative gearing meant existing arrangements would remain. Unions NSW clipped the exchange and, uncharitably, superimposed a computer loading spinning wheel on Barr’s face as the realisation dawned.
O’Neil, the key steward of the government’s key policy behind only the prime minister and treasurer, started the parliament week by trying to drag the debate back where they wanted it.
“Let’s remember here that the budget is about trying to reshape the housing opportunities for Australians,” she said, saying the average family was not sitting around the kitchen table talking about trust arrangements.
O’Neil has been taking the fight to social feeds, engaging in the online equivalent of hand-to-hand combat by directly responding to viral videos, criticising “finance bros” and questioning media coverage of the changes.
The opposition, as usual, continued to have a normal one. Angus Taylor – showing his typical restraint and displaying the importance of not going too overboard – posted a meme depicting Albanese as the villain in Netflix movie Apex, a cannibalistic serial killer played by Taron Egerton who hunts protagonist Charlize Theron through the Australian bush. Theron, terror in her eyes, is depicted as “Australians trying to invest”. Good thing Taylor remained judicious rather than going off the deep end with his political attacks.
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg was more blunt, tweeting: “Communist tax plan, communist government.”
O’Neil will address the National Press Club on Thursday in an event notified at late notice, titled “Reforming Australia’s Broken Housing System”. Hammering their message on housing, and pushing aside some of the other budget fights, is an obvious intent.
With questions still lingering about the final makeup of the budget proposals, and how the public judges Labor’s plans, what it will all mean for Zebra and Giraffe is still anyone’s guess.
