Once a year, dozens of Herald staff agree to be locked inside a room for six hours to pore over the federal budget. Graphic designers, print editors, sub-editors, digital specialists and technology support staff are locked up, too. Phones are handed to Treasury staff, internet access is disabled from laptops and communication with the outside world can constitute a criminal offence.
The idea is to give the media time to examine the budget papers and write stories ahead of the treasurer’s speech to parliament at 7.30pm. Governments have also previously argued the lockup prevents market sensitive information from leaking before the full budget is handed down.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers visits Herald journalists during the budget lock-up on May 9.Credit: Rhett Wyman
Some journos love the ritual. I confess to being swept up in theatre of the lockup when I covered my first federal budget in 2011. But I now find the whole thing bizarre. The truth is the lockup has outlived its use-by date, for two reasons.
The first is that the practice is primarily an exercise in public relations management. Governments of all persuasions know this and have benefited from it. A key problem for media is that the budget’s 7.30pm delivery makes it extremely difficult to seek meaningful reaction from interest groups and the public before deadline. The Herald has very little capacity to gather reaction before the next day’s newspaper is sent to the printing press, and the 6pm television news bulletins are long finished by the time the treasurer rises to his feet in the House of Representatives.
The second reason is that governments now strategically release details of most measures in the weeks leading up to budget day to make sure they get as much coverage as possible. The concept is simple: a budget contains so much information that if it were to all be handed down at once, some of the goodies contained in it would risk being overlooked.
This year, information was published ahead of the budget about the surprise surplus this financial year, an increase to the JobSeeker rate, changes to single parent payments, new energy bill rebates, pharmacy reforms allowing Australians to buy twice as many common medicines for the price of one script, a much-needed $535 million funding injection for national cultural institutions such as the National Gallery of Australia, a $3.3 billion tobacco excise hike, and a decrease in government interest repayments from a forecast $96 billion between 2022-23 and 2025-26 to a slightly improved $86 billion.
The Herald’s terrific team in the Parliament House press gallery have a great track record of finding out budget information for themselves and disrupting the carefully crafted media matrix of the government of the day. A good example this year was an exclusive story that the budget would include changes to increase revenue from the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax.
Labor is not the only offender here. The Coalition also strategically released information ahead of budgets to maximise coverage. But it really is time for the current government to have a hard think about the approach, and whether we should just do away with sham lockups.
While living in London as the Herald’s Europe correspondent, I admired that the government there didn’t bother with all this fuss. The chancellor of the exchequer simply stands up in the House of Commons at lunchtime and delivers the budget, offering journalists plenty of time to cover the documents and speech in detail before deadlines and the evening TV bulletins.
Scepticism aside, this week’s lockup at Parliament House produced some brilliant journalism from reporters David Crowe, Shane Wright, Peter Hartcher, Matthew Knott, Natassia Chrysanthos, Rachel Clun, Lisa Visentin, Mike Foley, James Massola and Tony Wright, along with bureau chief Michelle Griffin and her deputy Stephanie Peatling, and photographers Alex Ellinghausen and Rhett Wyman.
Herald economics editor Ross Gittins at Tuesday’s budget lockup.Credit: Brook Mitchell
In the lockup at our North Sydney office, staff helped economics editor Ross Gittins celebrate an extraordinary milestone: covering his 50th federal budget for the Herald.
We covered his desk in streamers, confetti and balloons and champagne, and I delivered a small speech recognising Ross’ remarkable contribution to the public policy debate.
Ross joined the Herald as a cadet in 1974 and was appointed economics editor in 1978. He is the longest continuous columnist in the Herald’s 192-year history and has been writing three columns a week since the very early 1980s.
His first budget was for Bill Hayden’s first and only economic statement in 1975. In the years since, Ross has covered 19 federal treasurers.
Current Treasurer Jim Chalmers said this about Ross’ achievement: “When it comes to economic insights, nobody has done it better for longer. Not every treasurer agrees with every word but every treasurer reads and respects it. He’s not a journalist, he’s an institution.”
He certainly is, and we are lucky to have him.
Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.