Amid the general idiocy of the parliament and government this week, the contribution by the treasurer, Scott Morrison, to the desperation that is infecting the government deserves to be highlighted.

About the best way you can sum up Scott Morrison’s week is that he began it by accusing the ALP of raising taxes and he ended it by introducing a bill to raise taxes.

And yet that rather underplays his work which highlighted just how desperate the government has become.

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On Monday morning the various News Corp papers thundered with front page stories that Labor’s tax policies would cost the economy $167bn.

It was a clear drop from the treasurer’s office, given the story contained multiple quotes from Morrison himself and was reported to be based on “independent Parliamentary Budget Office modelling”.

Normally I pay scant regard to such “costings” claims – the figures involved are mostly exaggerated and discredited almost as soon as they are made.

Take for example during last year’s election campaign when Scott Morrison and finance minister Mathias Cormann announced the ALP had a $67bn budget black hole. By the end of the very press conference announcing the figure, it had been revised down to $32bn.

Usually such boisterous claims involve extrapolating all manner of announcements of old policies and coming up with a big figure by extending the time line out to 10 years.

But this report on Monday was somewhat odd. For a start, the government wasn’t claiming a black hole – it was claiming that the ALP’s policies to raise revenue would ... errr ... raise revenue.

And second was the inclusion of the Parliamentary Budget Office.

That was the aspect that piqued my interest, because the PBO, unlike the treasury or other government departments, is actually independent.

Back during the GFC, Kevin Rudd as PM liked to suggest any criticism of the ALP’s policies was off base because it meant attacking the “independent” treasury. Of course the treasury department is not independent at all. All government departments report to their minister.

But the PBO does not advise the government or a minister – its role is “to inform the parliament by providing independent and non-partisan analysis of the budget cycle, fiscal policy and the financial implications of proposals.”

Crucially anyone in parliament can go to it for advice, whereas only the government can ask treasury (or any other departments) for policy advice or costings.

So a report that the PBO had done costings of ALP policy is rather big news – given it brings with it the benefit of independence, untainted by political interference.

Alas it was not true.

The article published in the News Corp papers suggested “the Parliamentary Budget Office and treasury conducted independent modelling of Labor’s tax plans”, and yet the PBO had done no such thing.

This “modelling” which had Scott Morrison saying was “a six-shooting tax blast that will bring our economy to a standstill” was in fact just the usual extrapolated rubbish.

But not only were the numbers dodgy, so too was the claim that it was based on PBO modelling.

And that was a major misstep by the treasurer.

Not only does invoking the PBO to support your dubious claims undermine the independence of the PBO – a bad enough path in itself for a treasurer to start taking – it was also guaranteed to result in a swift response from the PBO itself.

And so it came to pass that by 11:30 on Monday morning the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Jenny Wilkinson, put out a statement saying :“References in the media this morning to modelling being released today by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) are incorrect. The analysis reported in the media this morning was not conducted by the PBO”.

That is a pretty big slap down – and one entirely to be expected.

What did the treasurer think the PBO would do? Was it part of Morrison’s plan to have his figures discredited before lunch time? If so, by linking the PBO to the figures made sure that would happen.

Soon after the treasurer changed his tune, telling Sky News’ Kieran Gilbert that the figures merely extended the Parliamentary Budget Office costings made for the 2016 election “out just one extra year”.

But that meant it was not actual independent advice – just the treasurer’s office picking what policies to cost over a time frame of its choosing and to come up with a figure it wanted to broadcast.

In effect it’s the type of thing you do during an election campaign when you’re trying for a headline and hoping voters will only focus on the hullabaloo of the big number and not have time amidst the noise of the campaign to enquire too closely.

Why is the government – still two years away from an election – already going down this route?

And why make a big song and dance about the ALP raising taxes in the very same week the treasurer also introduced a bill to raise the Medicare levy from 2% to 2.5% for all income earners?

It would seem we have now morphed from good and bad debt to good and bad tax rises.

It also shows the treasurer has not learned from his work last year when he released so-called independent modelling of Labor’s policies that failed to live up to either billing.

The government has clearly been caught napping as the economic debate shifted from worries about deficits to a focus on inequality. Yet Morrison’s response this week which actually highlighted the ALP’s policies to remove negative gearing, reduce the capital gains discount, change the taxation of family trusts and keep the budget deficit levy for people earning more than $180,000 suggests the government still lacks a response other than what they think worked from 1996 to 2004 – “low taxes good, and something something budget deficit and debt”.

Morrison not only revealed the government’s policy flat-footedness, he also revealed the government’s fear that it needs to start fighting the next election now. But not only that, he did this in a manner that undermined his own credibility.

In a week in which members of the government seemed to be competing to be the most foolish, the treasurer’s performance should not be overlooked.