In one dizzying day the Coalition campaign swept from a blizzard of mixed-metaphorical nonsense about Labor to a coherent defence of its own superannuation plans.

Scott Morrison excelled on the mixed-metaphor hustings, declaring that Labor was waging “war on business” with “toxic taxes” and a “war on growth” using tax as its “bullets”. Labor also seemed to be using a sledgehammer at some point – perhaps to smash economic growth into tiny little pieces on the pavement, it wasn’t entirely clear.

The treasurer appeared beside a placard listing Labor’s five-pronged assault on our future prosperity, listing its “plans” for higher taxes on small business, investment, income, housing and electricity, with big red crosses beside each because toxic, bullet-like, sledgehammer-similar taxes are, you know, really bad.

Not since Tony Abbott told us that the carbon tax was a toxic wrecking ball that will destroy jobs, and also strike us like a cobra or squeeze us like a python and also wipe whole towns off the map, has voters’ intelligence been insulted with such ridiculous hyperbole.

You might remember it was Abbott who first suggested the Coalition attack Labor for proposing “five new taxes” – a “housing tax” (negative gearing), a wealth tax (less generous tax discounts on capital gains), a seniors’ tax (changes to superannuation), a workers’ tax (higher excise on cigarettes because apparently bosses don’t smoke) and a carbon tax (an emissions trading scheme) – but the Coalition has actually now adopted its own version of the “seniors’ tax” and the “workers’ tax” so they needed to be struck from Morrison’s list of acts of extreme and provocative political ill will.

Distilling the rhetoric for facts, the “tax on small business” is actually Labor’s decision not to support a tax cut for businesses with a turnover of more than $2m a year. Labor is actually backing the tax cut for small businesses but a Coalition attack on Labor for proposing “higher taxes on big business” might not work as well in the overall scare campaign.

Arguments can be made for and against the higher taxes on investment (capital gains changes), income (refers to continuing the deficit levy for those earning more than $180,000, which isn’t really all income), housing (Labor’s negative gearing policy) and electricity (plans for new version of the emissions trading scheme) but Morrison wasn’t really making them.

Just as arguments can be about the exact benefits for the government’s plan to deliver $48bn in company tax cuts, including that its measurable economic benefits are limited and not evident for decades, that Australia’s system of dividend imputation means much of the benefit could flow offshore and that relatively few small businesses will use the benefit to expand their businesses.

Malcolm Turnbull started the “war on business” rhetoric but hasn’t overextended the metaphor quite as spectacularly as his treasurer.

But he was on stronger ground on Wednesday in explaining his superannuation changes, which have caused some dissent in his own ranks and which some ministers have struggled to explain.

The Institute for Public Affairs – which has been campaigning against the super package – has described the government’s argument that the super changes only hit the top-earning 4% as worthy of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. (They mean that in a bad way.) Turnbull continued with the fairness argument anyway.

“Yes, there is about 4% that are going to have to pay a bit more tax,” he said. “I can understand their disappointment but my role, my job is to govern for all Australians. My job is to make the superannuation system fairer, more flexible, better for women, fairer for older people, fairer for people who are self-employed, fairer for people on the very lowest incomes. That’s what we’ve done. They are important to make our system sustainable and they have enabled us to do a better job for the people that need the most help.

“As a consequence of our changes, people who are earning $37,000 or less will pay no tax on their superannuation contribution. People who are out of the workforce will be able to catch up five years of unused concessional contributions ... that is overwhelmingly women.

“Now, it is true that some people, around 4%, on high incomes and with high superannuation balances will have to pay some more tax on their superannuation account in the sense they will pay the 15% tax whereas previously they were paying nothing ... 15% remains a very concessional tax rate. That is less tax than a kid pays on his marginal income stacking shelves at Woolies. Let’s get real about this. Nobody likes paying more tax. Super has been an extremely generous system. It remains a very generous tax advantage system.”

A fact-free rhetorical barrage or a fact-filled explanation. Surely the latter is more effective.