It's not just Europe and the United States where base politics can make for bad economics. There's a danger that cheap populism is about to lock in a bad outcome for Australia in the next financial year and, depending on the extent to which you can trust political leaders to lie, worse beyond that.

For all the opinion poll perceptions though, it's not the government that's guilty of a gross failure of economic credibility. It's the opposition, both in the short and medium terms.

The immediate test of whether a party is fit to govern is the minerals resources rent tax (MRRT). In economic terms, it's a no-brainer, which is why the opposition's stance is such a worry. Either there are no brains, or the leadership is so pathetically shallow that they are prepared to damage the country to get the keys to the Lodge.

It's not often that Rupert Murdoch's local tabloids or broadsheet blow Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey away, but that's just what Laurie Oakes did in his Saturday column.

He gave "attack dog" Abbott both barrels for his plain dumb stance in rejecting the RRT in any form plus slapped down Abbott and Hockey for "advocating their feral version of economic isolationism" in opposing the possibility of Australia increasing its loan to the International Monetary Fund.