Try and spot the ‘wellbeing’ in this budget. You could be a while

There are an increasing number of policy areas in which experts, prominently among these the Productivity Commission, find that money alone is not leading to better results. For instance in education, where, despite ever-increasing funding, too many students are falling further behind international standards.

Improving educational outcomes would lead to greater social mobility for disadvantaged children and life-satisfaction for all. Health is another area with similar dynamics. Measuring outcomes in health and education would be something that matters.

Loading

But Budget Afterthought 4 is just a placeholder. A promise that, next year, Treasury will develop and release a “Measuring What Matters Statement”. That statement will “complement, rather than replace, the rich set of specialised reporting processes such as Closing the Gap and the State of the Environment reports”, so much of it already exists. What’s more, “these and other in-depth reporting processes will remain essential to provide finer levels of detail on specific policy areas”. So by the sounds of it, the government is planning to measure what matters twice. Once for action and once as an attraction.

The “saves” are also largely cosmetic. For the most part, with the exception of a few high-profile infrastructure projects, the incisions are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. One of the biggest is $3.6 billion over four years from external labour, advertising, travel and legal expenses. The budgeteers have provided little detail on how this comes together, but perhaps the $3.7 million spent on short-haul business class flights for public servants over the past year offers a clue to the travel aspect.

There’s also $4 million over two years from discontinuing the “Workforce Australia Advertising Campaign”.

But don’t for a second believe this means the government plans to cut the use of external labour and advertising entirely. Packed into funding from the outcomes of the Jobs and Skills Summit is some moolah to “raise awareness of opportunities for high-skilled migrants in Australia’s permanent Migration Program”. (Don’t ask how much – it’s lumped in with the $42.2 million allocated to increasing visa-processing capacity over the next two years).

Loading

Still, you can take a wild punt that the “awareness raising” is not going to be conducted by public servants hitting the phones to Bengal. What’s more, the Jobs and Skills Summit itself and the Employment White Paper which is to synthesise that talkfest is expected to bring in a total bill of $4.7 million. That’s a pricey party if it cost even half, and I can think of more than a few external consultants who would be happy to deliver a white paper for the bargain-basement price of just $1.5 mill.

Another whopper advertising campaign – sorry, strategy – which didn’t make the saves is the National Anti-Racism Strategy. This involves $7.5 million over four years, followed by $1.7 million a year in ongoing funding, provided to the Australian Human Rights Commission to develop a National Anti-Racism Strategy and to extend the “Racism. It Stops With Me” campaign, “which seeks to raise public awareness, deliver public education and build community capacity to combat racism and discriminatory attitudes”. No doubt worth every penny. Just don’t call it advertising or suggest that external consultants might be involved.

This is not a disastrous budget, but it’s just kind of ho-hum. After the government started out strong, this budget is a reminder that it isn’t immune to the circuitous patterns of Canberra. All sides of politics eventually find themselves touring the same roads, trying to arrive at the same destinations. It’s just the permutations of “lost” which are endless.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.