The five-yearly intergenerational report ought to be highly informative, leading to serious debate about the economic choices we face. In the hands of Joe Hockey, however, it has become little more than a crude propaganda exercise.

As such it will be quickly cast aside, like last year's report of the Commission of Audit. Within a few days all that will remain is the taxpayer-funded advertising campaign. It, too, will be more about spin than brain-food.

Hockey has shifted the report's focus from the next 40 years to the government's present struggles with the budget. The message he wants us to take away is that it's all Labor fault, but the government has worked hard to greatly reduce the problem. And were not for those crazies in the Senate - who seem to think our spending cuts were unfair - last year's budget would have set us up for budget surpluses right through to 2055.

The message we should take away from it, as with its three predecessors, is one no politician on either side is prepared to admit: as our demands on the government for more and better services continue to grow, we will have pay for them with higher taxes. Since our real incomes are projected to rise by almost 80 per cent, this won't be so terrible.