Australia heads into the summer lull with enormous pressures bearing down on households and no substantial answers on how the country will jump out of its drift to a harder world. If there is a bold vision for a brighter future, it was certainly not in this week’s budget update. And that is a worrying sign for the election campaign ahead.

Politics can often be obsessed about the small things politicians do – the gaffes, the stumbles, the edgy opinions – but this is a column about what they do not do. In a political culture that punishes boldness, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton are treading warily on economic reform. Australians will be the poorer for it.

Illustration: Simon Letch

Everyone can see that this week was no time for big announcements. The budget update was a do-nothing document because Albanese will keep any big decisions for next year, closer to the election. The mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, or MYEFO, was an accounting exercise to set the foundation for the campaign.

Dutton, meanwhile, has taken the risk of proposing nuclear energy without a compelling plan to make it happen, neatly assuming his proposal will cost 44 per cent less than the government policy because it will produce 40 per cent less electricity. Bold? Yes. Convincing? No.

The economic argument waits for next year. Dutton looks scared of scrutiny by keeping his plans under wraps for so long. Albanese, in turn, will start revealing more in January. The key point is that both sides must do more on the economy to give Australians a reason to sit up and take notice.

That is because the mid-year update is such a dismal picture of Australia – certainly not a vision worth voting for. It is a portrait of a mediocre nation with low growth, higher prices, heavy........

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