Perspective matters ... #Budget2018
The old Indian fable about Blind Men and the Elephant still holds true today.
Nowhere is the fable more apt than commenting about the Australian Government's Budget.
Shortly after the Budget a number of 'first response' videos were filmed by PwC Partners in Parliament House. Mine is available here:
PwC's CEO, Luke Sayers, also provided an initial point of view, available here:
Neither Luke nor I saw each other film our videos, or knew what we were going to say.
So it was interesting when one of my team rang later the next day somewhat worried that we were "saying the opposite thing".
While we may not have interpreted the homework question precisely the same, it is interesting that someone formed that view.
Budgets can be so many things to different people:
- book-keeping on a grand scale
- a political manifesto
- a roadmap for business and the community
- a shopping list of opportunities
- and so on ...
And the frame of reference for each commentary can vary as well. Do we benchmark the Budget outcomes against last year, or hopes and expectations coming in to the Budget or against a more abstract target? Each is valid; we just need to acknowledge from where we start.
This Budget paints a far more rosy picture of the the economy over the next few years: higher growth; lower unemployment; higher wages growth; and some debt reduction. Luke is correct - this is the shot of optimism, positivity and momentum that we have not felt in recent years. He is benchmarking against recent outcomes.
Equally - and this is the underlying point in my video - we need to take advantage of every opportunity, and push to look beyond the now to a longer term target. Here I acknowledge that, as an election budget, I might be on the naive side in taking the longer term view!
Neither position is absolutely right or wrong, we just come at it from different perspectives that share more in common than may initially seem.