Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will be spinning his wheels in his efforts to put the best gloss on what are likely to be indifferent numbers. This is where an economic report card gets entangled with Morrison’s vision for the new year, assuming there is such a vision. Loading In the run-up to 2020, a government light on for a legislative program beyond friendless freedom of religion legislation, and attempts to bring powerful unions to heal, needs to recalibrate. After a "miracle" election victory in which policy formulation took second place to politicking, the government's political agenda is, well, threadbare. Do-little governments wither without a motivational program in place. Morrison might give some thought to this over the holiday break when he should consider a limited cabinet reshuffle and a review of his government’s priorities.

The gaffe-prone Angus Taylor, minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, should be shunted. He has become a liability for a government seeking to reassure the country it is taking climate seriously, if indeed that is the case. In any survey of his policies, Morrison might do himself and us all a favour by accepting a transition to a sustainable energy future is inevitable, whether he or the climate troglodytes in his own party and in the media like it or not. Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: This brings us to the government’s budget surplus fetish. Frydenberg has been holding the line on loosening the spigots on government spending and thus endangering a wafer-thin budget surplus. However, his dilemma and that of the government is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the dangers of an economy stuck in neutral. In its dry-as-dust B-assessment of the Australian economy, the IMF had this to say: “Risks to the outlook are tilted to the downside amid subdued domestic confidence, heightened global policy uncertainty and the risks of a faster slowdown in China.’’ In plain language, the economy is underperforming.

The IMF is hardly deserving of plaudits for its forecasting abilities. The fund had anticipated growth of 2.7 per cent this year against a likely 1.7 per cent, or thereabouts, on a calendar year basis. While the IMF did not say so directly, clearly it believes the government should expend more of its fiscal and political capital on stimulating a faltering economy. “The authorities should be ready for a co-ordinated response if downsize risks materialise,’’ it said. “Australia has substantial fiscal space it can use if needed.’’ One could argue, given signs of unemployment edging up at 5.3 per cent amid stagnating real wages and weak consumer confidence, that “downside risks’’ have indeed materialised. What should be particularly concerning to the government is that a budget that is "back in the black" is to a significant extent hostage to a single commodity – iron ore. As Professor Richard Holden of the University of NSW points out in a useful contribution to understanding the precarious structure of the budget surplus, the government’s bounty is substantially attributable to the bursting in January of the tailings dam at Vale’s giant southeastern Brazil Corrego do Feijao mine. This cut the world’s biggest iron ore exporter’s shipments by a third. In the process the iron ore price spiked above $US120 ($178) per metric tonne. That price now hovers around $US90, but the salutary detail for Frydenberg is that each $US10 shift in the iron ore price translates into a A$3.7 billion difference in the budget bottom line.

“This has helped this year, but it also shows how dependent the budget’s relatively small $7.1 billion 'underlying cash balance' is on a commodity price that is out of control,’’ Holden writes. Loading This returns us to glimpses of what may well be another Scott Morrison through the Sydney smoke haze. What emerged was a leader who exhibited less empathy for those afflicted than might reasonably have been anticipated. Combativeness in an effort to shut down reasonable questions about possible links between climate, drought and bushfires was a poor look. Populist fake news references to the "Canberra bubble" in an effort to avoid questioning wear thin. The media’s job is not to join the ranks of Morrison’s "quiet Australians". Its responsibility is to respectfully and firmly ask legitimate questions about challenges facing the country in what has the makings of a quietist policy-free zone.