Its approach, rather than embarking on serious, structural repair such as fixing capital gains tax and negative gearing distortions, is to fiddle with the Low Income Tax Offset as a means of offering "tax relief" ($10 a week for middle Australia and $4 for those on less than $37,000) combined with regressive tax cuts. From 2024-25, Australians earning $41,000 will pay the same personal rate as those on $200,000 at a cost of $140 billion, which even then will take at least two election cycles to materialise.

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While immediate income tax cuts, especially at the lower end of the scale, are vastly preferable to the large corporate tax cut handouts Team Turnbull prefers (and were saved from by a more responsible Senate), let’s tell it like it is – these smoke and mirror tax cuts are nothing more than vote-buying from a desperate government racing to an early election. They will serve only to worsen the long-term structural deficit, place a higher debt burden on future generations and force deeper cuts to healthcare, education, aged care, job training, and defence spending.

For Labor, this budget presents an opportunity. Having committed to spending where it is needed and justified, in areas like infrastructure, childcare and health, there is some room to move on lowering taxes for working and middle Australia. The Turnbull government no doubt imagines tax cuts will wedge Labor politically, despite their inherent economic irresponsibility. But for Labor, seeking to win the electorate’s trust on economic management, resisting an auction that mortgages the nation’s future to pay for the mistakes of the past would be the right thing to do.

Instead, as part of a suite of already announced debt-reduction policies, Labor can draw a contrast between itself and a cash-splashing Coalition by considering the introduction of a National Debt Commission. Such a commission should be bipartisan and comprised of people like former Liberal leader John Hewson, former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, former Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens, and ex-ACTU secretary Bill Kelty. It should be tasked with making recommendations on budget repair and debt reduction that are fair, credible and do not place a disproportionate amount of the burden on working Australians, young or old, or our most vulnerable.

In doing this, Bill Shorten could emulate his predecessor’s 1983 Economic Summit. He could facilitate both a national awareness of the problem and something approaching national consensus around solving it. And it would be in the national interest.

The Australian public are weary of slick words and tricks, accompanied by glittering baubles at election time. They know they’ll be the ones left paying the bill. Voters are smarter and more conscientious than their leaders often give them credit for. This budget and in years to come, we need national leaders who take the country into their confidence and chart a sensible, sustainable course for the future.

Dr Nick Dyrenfurth is executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre.