As the economy turns south, the treasurer will be faced with choices in how he responds. This calm before the shitstorm is an opportunity for reforms to energy, the NDIS and housing
While the treasurer puts the finishing touches to a budget that was to be the lodestar of Labor’s second term, he could be forgiven for thinking he has been washed up on the set of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach.
The Hollywood adaptation of Shute’s 1957 novel about Melburnians waiting for the arrival of nuclear fallout from an ill-judged Middle Eastern war speaks to this moment, as we confront the inevitable consequences of Donald Trump’s foolish bombing of Iran.