The plain fact is that a government, like a man, ought to mean what it says. The ingenuity spent denying this simple truth, by obfuscating the plain meaning of words spoken a mere five days prior, is itself evidence of its force. We are presented with a spectacle of political convenience, wherein the pronouncements of today are made to obliterate the memory of yesterday, all under the guise of relieving the burden upon the common man.

Let us consider this sudden beneficence. The Albanese government, through its ministers, declared but a short while ago that the cutting of the fuel excise was not a thing to be considered. Then, with a swiftness that would do credit to a conjuror, the excise is halved. The immediate beneficiaries, we are told, are the Australian motorists, who shall now pay less at the pump. This is, indeed, a tangible relief, and one to be welcomed by any man who must drive to his labour or to market. The price of fuel is not an abstract concept to such a man; it is the very difference between sustenance and want, between reaching his employment and remaining idle.

But let us apply the Moral Weight Test. What does this policy, and its abrupt introduction, truly ask of ordinary people? It asks them, first, to accept that the word of a minister of the Crown is as mutable as the weather vane. When Mr. Chalmers, five days before the act, declared that such a cut was not under consideration, he made a statement of public policy. To reverse this with such alacrity is to treat public discourse as a mere game, where declarations are but temporary conveniences, to be discarded when the political winds shift. This cultivates a public cynicism that saps the strength from all future pronouncements, however earnest. The ordinary man, accustomed to such tergiversation, learns to trust no word, to expect no consistency, and to view all political rhetoric as a species of elaborate theatre. This is a heavy cost, for it undermines the very foundation of trust by which a polity governs itself.

it asks the ordinary citizen to disregard the very notion of a consistent economic philosophy. Was the excise cut a good idea five days ago? If not, what sudden illumination descended upon the government in so short a time, that a bad idea became a necessary one? Or was it, rather, that the political calculus changed, and the comfort of the populace became a more pressing concern than the integrity of previous statements? The self-deception here is profound: to pretend that the initial denial was not a considered position, or that the reversal is merely a humanitarian gesture untainted by political expediency. The flattering account is that the government is responsive to the needs of its people; the true account, suggested by the timing and the prior denial, is that the government is responsive to the immediate pressures of public opinion and the electoral calendar.

The concrete person, the motorist benefiting from this reduction, will certainly appreciate the few cents saved per litre. But he is also being asked to swallow a bitter pill of inconsistency. He is implicitly asked to believe, or at least to pretend to believe, that a denial made five days ago can be utterly repudiated today without any loss of credibility. This is a demand upon his intelligence and his memory. The language used to justify such a reversal, no doubt couched in terms of ’evolving circumstances’ or ’listening to the people,’ serves only to obscure the simple fact that a promise, or at least a firm declaration, was made and then broken with astonishing speed.

It is a curious thing, this politics, that it should demand such flexibility of principle from its practitioners, and such forgetfulness from its subjects. The true weight of this policy is not merely the reduction in fuel costs, but the further erosion of public faith in the constancy and sincerity of those who govern. The motorist pays less at the pump, but the nation pays more in the coinage of trust. And that, Sir, is a far more precious commodity than petrol.