SMOKIN' Joe Hockey in May gave the best example of how mere trivia can undermine a budget.
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The Treasurer and his Finance Minister were caught by a long-lens TV camera puffing on Havana cigars while putting to bed one of Australia's toughest budgets.
The camera shot was intrusive, but its impact was deadly. It portrayed an elitist and uncaring government.
On Thursday state Treasurer Peter Gutwein will bring down the Liberals' first budget in 16 years, and while it will be expansive in some ways it will also rein in expenditure by cutting public sector jobs.
Job losses are always a hard sell, so the world would sympathise with the Treasurer, when colleague Health Minister Michael Ferguson cost the equivalent of a fortnightly pension on a luxury taxi round trip from Launceston to Hobart one Sunday just for a press conference.
The government argues that it was overcharged by the particular luxury hire car company, because it had a deal with taxi and hire car companies for an hourly rate but the driver in this instance turned on the meter, which cost almost $800.
Not a large amount. The minister has probably found million of dollars to save in health, but it's the petty cash that always ruins the message. The opposition loved it, after securing the details via a Right to Information request.
The nature of the hire car cost is not the issue. MPs are issued with a private-plated vehicle, courtesy of taxpayers. On that Sunday last April the minister could have driven himself.
Thursday's s budget will cut public sector jobs while spending $400 million over four years to keep election promises, which the Liberals didn't have to make. They were always a certainty to win by a landslide in March.
It will be a tough sell, and the Health Minister just made it a little tougher.