Peter Dutton will face internal pressure to match any cost-of-living relief offered in next week’s federal budget as Coalition MPs hope to neutralise a potentially potent Labor attack during the campaign.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget on 25 March is widely tipped to include some support for households, including another round of $300 energy rebates.
Labor has weaponised Dutton’s resistance to past cost-of-living relief measures to paint the Coalition as opposed to helping struggling households.
With an election due in May, Coalition MPs told Guardian Australia that the opposition would be “hard pressed” not to match further relief, particularly “given the election is so tight”.
One MP said: “If Labor is offering cost-of-living in the budget, it is nearly impossible to see us not matching that.”
The Coalition has framed its economic narrative around fiscal restraint, making a virtue of opposing tens of billions worth of government spending throughout the term.
But as Coalition backbenchers clamour for big-ticket economic policies to sell to voters, Dutton and the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, are under growing internal pressure to loosen the purse strings.
One MP said they “would be surprised” if Dutton didn’t use his budget reply speech next Thursday to commit to new cost-of-living relief.
Asked last week if he would match another round of $300 energy rebates, Dutton said the Coalition would look at “what the government puts forward” but would not support anything that fuels inflation.
The first round of rebates caused a dramatic, albeit temporary, fall in electricity prices, which in turn reduced inflation.
Chalmers told the Queensland Media Club on Tuesday there have been “hints” as to what will be revealed in next week’s documents.
“I’ve made pretty clear on a number of occasions now, there are hints in the first three budgets,” he said.
“For the government’s fourth budget, I’m obviously not going to commit to another round of energy bill rebates here with you … but what I can say is that there will be more cost-of-living help in the budget.”
Some inside Coalition ranks are concerned about a perceived lack of economic policies and poor messaging around recent announcements, including on forcing public servants back to the office and holding a referendum to deport dual citizens.
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One MP said members and candidates in the party “don’t want to be going to an election without anything to sell”.
Taylor on Wednesday bristled at suggestions the Coalition had a threadbare economic agenda.
“That’s just not true,” he told ABC RN Breakfast.
“Re-establishing the physical guardrails is incredibly important policy, opposing over $100bn of Labor spending that’s inappropriate at a time like this when inflation is raging, has been a strong position taken by the Coalition
“You have not seen an opposition take anything like that kind of position against unnecessary spending in recent history.”
Taylor previously criticised the $300 energy rebate as a “Band-Aid solution”.
“Labor’s fiscally unsustainable manipulation of headline inflation through subsidies is a desperate attempt to try and cover up their economic failures,” he said in an October statement.