If Australia does lose its AAA credit rating in the months ahead, two iron laws of our national politics will come into conflict.

The first dictates that governments are always held responsible for delivery. Already Scott Morrison is beginning a drumbeat of Labor-blame, attacking Bill Shorten and his team for refusing, via the senate, to deliver every last item on the treasurer’s savings wishlist. As effective PMs know, blaming the senate rarely works. A prime minister is expected to make do with what he or she has.

Under this rule, Morrison’s whingeing won’t get him very far.

But the second rule states that whatever the facts, whatever the persuasiveness of the arguments marshaled on either side, the Australian voting public backs the Liberal Party over the ALP when it comes to economics.

Some progressive wishful thinkers like to believe this could be turned around if only Labor would argue more effectively for its economic credentials. That argument tends to fall apart in the face of evidence that this voter preference – for conservative parties over progressive parties on economics – holds true across western, developed nations.

Under the second rule, Morrison’s blame game might succeed simply because it’s Labor he’s blaming.

MYEFO (aka the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook) came out today, and in itself wasn’t a huge event. The deficit this year is a little lower than previously projected. Deficits in coming years blow out. Surplus is expected in the same year as previously. (Though one could note that predicting a surplus in 2021 is a little cheeky after Morrison’s attacks on Labor’s “medium-term” projections during the election campaign.) Sensibly – both substantively and politically – the government isn’t taking for granted higher commodity prices in the future.

Of course, larger deficits are another reminder of the rank stupidity of the Coalition’s previous “budget emergency” rhetoric, and as Greg Jericho notes, Morrison’s belated discovery of “good debt” and “bad debt” should (but won’t) spell the end of the misguided war against Kevin Rudd’s stimulus.

But regardless of all of this, the fact is that Christmas is six days away and there’s nothing there of sufficient moment to grab anybody’s attention.

On the other hand, a ratings downgrade sometime in the new year would absolutely grab attention.

In general, this is seen as a likely blow to Malcolm Turnbull.

I’m not so sure. First, because of the above rule about Labor.

Second, because there persists in some parts of the community an assumption that a successful businessman will know a thing or two about the economy. Personally I reckon this makes little sense, either empirically (Keating and Hawke did just fine) or logically (managing a business is not like managing a government). But, politically, voters may be willing to put their trust in Turnbull if times get difficult.

Third, Turnbull has not been adept at managing the ordinary currents of politics. A crisis may well be the transforming event he needs. It may deliver to him both a reform agenda and a case for reform, both of which he has until now struggled with.

And fourth, because perhaps such an event would jolt the troublesome conservatives in his party out of the complacency that allows them to behave like over-sugared kindergartners.

But the truth is that while MYEFO is a sideshow to the ratings game, credit ratings in turn are a sideshow to the actual economy. Wage growth remains slow. The fluctuations in the global economy remain unpredictable – and we are particularly dependent on China.

If Australia were actually to enter a recession – still unlikely – or simply continue to suffer from sluggish growth that affects workers, it could easily hurt Turnbull. At that point, our prime minister will need a plan far more comprehensive than the faint blueprint he has relied upon so far. Today, former Gillard adviser Stephen Koukoulas makes a compelling case that the government has failed either to implement a growth strategy or a budget repair strategy. Another former Labor adviser, Andrew Charlton, made the case recently that fiscal policy needed to be used more. There are some signs (“good debt” and “bad debt”) that Scott Morrison is aware of such arguments – but as yet nothing concrete.

For the government to survive 2017, that will have to change.

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