NEWS
campusreview.com.au
How Budgets changed
the political landscape
A University of Sydney expert
has analysed how the role
of the Federal Budget has
changed over time.
Patrick Avenell
D
r Stewart Jackson is a lecturer in
government and international
relations at the University of
Sydney, and he is an expert in Australian
politics and the party system. As treasurer
Scott Morrison delivered the 2017 Federal
Budget recently, Jackson reflected on the
changes of the role of that document on
the Australian political landscape over time.
What once was a fairly dry accounting of
the government of the day’s intentions
4
has evolved, in his words, into a political
football.
“The Budget process – by its nature
a political process, given it lays out the
government’s spending priorities – has
become more of a political football as
governments grapple with increasing debt
levels post-GFC and the end of the mining
boom,” the USYD academic said.
“Fact-checking, and the fuss over the
2014 Budget being perceived to have
broken many promises, has also brought
the Budget into high relief.”
Jackson’s research over a long period has
run parallel to the rise of a major influencing
factor on how Budgets are composed,
received and legislated or o