The government faces a paradox, writes Tim Colebatch. It needs to stop the tax debate from running out of control but that means making unpopular decisions.

Malcolm Turnbull’s honeymoon with the Australian electorate has felt like a liberation; but it can’t last forever. His government, rightly, has allowed the tax debate to roam far and wide. But that freedom has allowed different interest groups to build up hopes and expectations that can’t be reconciled. The government must soon assert control by defining its goals – and once it does, it will start bleeding support.

Perhaps it has already begun doing so. Last week’s annual conference on economic and social reform hosted by the Australian and the Melbourne Institute (the economic think tank of the University of Melbourne) heard treasurer Scott Morrison insist that the government would not be using tax reform to increase revenue, a position he has since repeated. If so, then the government has already ruled out using net gains from tax reform to reduce its own deficit. That is worrying, when $1 in every $10 it spends is being funded by borrowing; and the Coalition promised us at the 2013 election that it would close that gap…

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