Budget season ripe for media bias

It's Budget season, which means any "stumble" by this Labor Government will likely be pounced upon by biased mainstream media and put on rerun every 15 minutes for the next seven days, writes Belinda Jones.

IT'S THAT TIME of year again… Budget season.

It’s nearly May, which means the Budget circus is about to roll into town with all the excitement a Budget can bring.

The buzz has already begun within mainstream media to plant the seed of what will become the narrative of our lives — speculations about what will and won’t be in "The Budget", excitedly reported by journalists. And that old chestnut, “Who will be the winners and losers this year?” will echo from TV studio to studio and throughout print mastheads, radio, podcasts and social media.

Budget week is theatre. It’s also pomp and pageantry, tradition and ceremony played out inside and outside the House of Representatives. PM Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers will get most of the limelight during that week, with a little for Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.

Budget week 2023 will likely begin Monday 8 May, with the PM and Treasury team of Chalmers and Gallagher doing the morning TV and radio rounds and print media for the rest of the day. Hosts will try in vain to extricate details about the Budget from their guests — to no avail.

Tuesday morning will see an early, chilly start for the PM and Treasurer; there will be early morning interviews in front of Parliament House to start rounds of questions from seemingly, every media organisation in the land.

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It’s budget time under a new Albanese Labor Government and never will there be a better time to gauge the media reset from pro to anti-government than now.

There will be photo opportunities, ceremony, more photo ops and probably a luncheon or two to attend in the lead-up to the 7:30pm address by the Treasurer in the House of Representatives.

There’s even a "Budget tree". Some years, it is known to bloom in May and be covered in an Autunmal carpet of glorious scarlet leaves; other years, winter comes early and barely a leaf is seen. The mood and health of the tree are said to be the barometer of the fiscal health of the nation: if the tree looks crook on Budget day, then the Budget will be crook.

In the days after the Budget is "handed down", there’ll almost be a Melbourne Cup-like fever about who the "winners and losers" will be. The media will whip themselves into a frenzy, heading out to local cafes to interview owners — whom some mainstream journalists believe are the arbiters of wisdom, their fingers on the pulse of society.

After cutting-edge interviews with café owners, the second wave of mainstream media reporters will then turn their focus to the lobbyists, including perhaps Denita Warn from Master Builders Australia or Innes Willox from the Australian Industry Group or Fiona Simson from the National Farmers' Federation: the usual, who will likely oppose anything the Treasurer says.

These groups usually don’t like what Labor governments have to say; perhaps this year, they’ll surprise us and be supportive — after all, the government does have a mandate from the people dated 21 May 2022.

Any faux pas by this Government – any stumble, any stuff up – will be pounced upon by mainstream media and put on rerun every 15 minutes for the next seven days. No one wants another "gaffe", do they?

My favourite part of Budget-week traditions is "the lockup", when journalists are locked up in the main committee room at Parliament House with other journalists to examine the new Budget documents for the first time to prepare themselves for Budget-related interviews.

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By now, you will have seen and heard plenty of commentary about the Federal Budget, which was handed down yesterday.

Once they enter the lockup, they can only leave once the treasurer starts speaking at 7:30pm. It's like an annual six-hour 'Hotel California' for political nerds. However, being in the lockup doesn’t necessarily mean mainstream journalists will emerge with a thorough understanding of the Budget. That’s the idea, though.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will deliver the Budget on Tuesday night, 9 May, at 7:30pm and – for about 30 minutes – will speak, outlining who gets what. This address from the Treasurer determines the nation’s direction for the next 12 months and aligns with the Government’s values and policy direction.

The Budget defines our lives in many ways, determining what we make, grow, donate, save and spend.

Australia's annual Budget of about $580 billion means we live in a first-world economy – winner, winner – but we must be realistic: the Coalition left a mess that is going to take time and money to clean up.

Chalmers will have to use all his wits to spread the Budget adequately and all his charm to sell it to the masses — after all, Budget season is an excellent opportunity to lodge his resume with the Australian people for the future job of PM.