Politics

Tense Issues: Scott Morrison Keeps Taking Credit For Things That Haven’t Happened Yet

"I said we brought the budget back to surplus next year."

by Sam Langford  9 May 2019
Scott Morrison calls the election

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Scott Morrison’s been having some pretty tense moments lately, in every sense of the word. In particular, he keeps bending the rules of English tense so that he can take credit for things that have not actually happened yet.

Things like the budget surplus, for instance, which ScoMo keeps claiming as one of his biggest wins even though it does not exist. The federal budget the government delivered back in April is projected to deliver a surplus next year, but that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed, and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s happened. Right at this moment, the budget very much remains in deficit.

Related
Everything You Need To Know About The 2019 Federal Budget And Its Useless Surplus

Scott Morrison hasn’t let a simple fact like that hold him back, though. In the third and final leaders’ debate with Bill Shorten last night, he responded to a question about the budget deficit by saying that “we will keep the budget in surplus”.

“We have brought our budget back to surplus,” he added, utilising the past tense. “We’re the party and government that has done that. And I think Australians can trust us to keep it in surplus”. 

“It’s not in surplus now,” the debate’s moderator, Sabra Lane, pointed out.

“I said next year,” Scott Morrison responded, though he clearly did not say that. “I said we brought the budget back to surplus next year”.

This is not the first time Morrison has been challenged on his understanding of time. Earlier this week, during an interview on the ABC’s 7.30, Morrison described the budget surplus like it had already happened, telling host Leigh Sales that voters should trust the Morrison government because “we brought the budget back into surplus”.

“I want to pick you up on a couple of points there,” Sales responded. “A key issue in any election is trust. You spoke about the Budget being back in black — will you establish a basic fact for the voters, which is that according to the Budget Papers the Budget is currently in deficit and a surplus is forecast for next year?”

“The Budget for 2019-20 will be in surplus,” Morrison said. Sales then reminded him that we’re currently in the financial year 2018-19. “Right now, as we walk and breathe on this day, in May, 2019, the Budget is in deficit,” she said.

Morrison briefly agreed, and then continued to absolutely mangle tense to take credit for the future surplus anyway. “Having got the Budget back into surplus next year, we can move to the second phase of the plan”. 

I wish I could go to the bank and tell them that “having quit my job and become a millionaire next year, we can move to giving me several hundred thousand dollars in cash”, but unfortunately I don’t think that would fly.

The Future Isn’t All Scott Morrison’s Happy To Take Credit For

In addition to taking credit for future events, Scott Morrison also appears to be taking credit for past events that never happened. Earlier this week, the UN released a massive report warning that humanity has put one million species at risk of extinction. On Tuesday, Scott Morrison said that “we already introduced and passed legislation through the Senate actually dealing with that very issue in the last week of the parliament”, but as far as anyone can tell, no legislation that has anything to do the topic actually passed Parliament in the week in question.

The Guardian asked Morrison’s office to clarify exactly which legislation he was talking about — so far, he has not responded.

Anyway, just some food for thought if you’re listening to