Do you know how your money is being spent? You might want to pay attention

It should not come as a surprise to know that I – a self-described budget nerd – maintain a spreadsheet of the nation’s treasurers.

Ranking them by length of service, the sheet traverses the 40 men to have held the post, from Gough Whitlam (just 14 days) all the way up to Peter Costello (11 years, 267 days).

(For pedants, I do not count Bob Hawke in the list for the single day he held the job after sacking Paul Keating and appointing John Kerin.)

I also keep records on some of the key messages delivered by treasurers through their annual day in the sun – budget day.

George Turner, the nation’s first treasurer and its 12th-longest serving, noted prophetically the weight on his shoulders, and those in Parliament House in Melbourne in 1901, when he released the first Commonwealth budget.

“I feel that the work on which we shall be engaged for some little time is of the utmost importance to all the people of our Commonwealth – not alone to those who are here now, but to those who will be here when we have passed away,” he said.

Turner spoke like the Victorian (both the era and the colony of which he was twice premier) he was. But his message still stands. A government’s budget is a covenant from current to future generations.

In the lead-up to, and in the days after, much of the political attention on the budget comes to the bottom line. Will the treasurer of the day reveal a nation deep in the red, on the path to recovery, or firmly in the black?

In this country, the state of the budget is a prominent political and economic issue.

Just travel to the United States, where Donald Trump is running a deficit of more than $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion), to find a nation where the political class (and voters) have effectively given up on trying to put the country’s finances in some sort of shape. A reckoning is coming that will affect everyone.

But here, most Australians – even if they don’t grasp every element of our fiscal health – understand the importance of the government keeping the budget under control.

However, it appears that grasp of the budget is extremely tenuous.

This month, the Resolve Political Monitor asked more than 2200 people whether they could remember who delivered the last budget surplus, and the year in which that occurred.

If you’re Jim Chalmers, turn away now.

Twenty-nine per cent of respondents correctly answered that it was Labor, and Chalmers, who had the budget in the black a little over two years ago. Just 29 per cent.

More, 30 per cent, actually said it was the Coalition, while 41 per cent were unsure.

Unsurprisingly, there was a large political split. Almost 55 per cent of Labor voters said it was the ALP that had delivered the last surplus, with just 13 per cent saying it was the Coalition.

But 55 per cent of Coalition voters said it was the Liberal and National parties that had the budget back in the black (a little ahead of the 40 per cent of One Nation voters) most recently. The surpluses of 2022-23 and 2023-24 had completely passed them by.

So we asked if people can name the year in which the last surplus arrived. Greens voters (20 per cent) and Labor voters (18 per cent) were most likely to correctly guess 2023-24.

Thirteen per cent said 2019-20, which recorded the second-largest deficit in history ($85 billion).

Five per cent of Coalition voters went all the way back to Peter Costello’s final budget, 2007-08, while another 7 per cent guessed 2006-07.

At least 42 per cent of all respondents conceded they didn’t know. But a third of respondents actually believed there was a surplus in the 2010s when not one was delivered.

This ignorance around the state of the budget, even over the past couple of years, should not be unexpected.

Ahead of the May budget, Resolve asked people to guess how much was spent on particular areas.

People, on average, thought the government had spent $66 billion on Jobseeker. It was $17 billion. People thought defence would swallow $93 billion, instead of the actual $53 billion.

And, in a number that tells you plenty about our current political debate, respondents estimated the foreign aid budget was $59 billion. It’s actually $4.5 billion.

The state of the budget is not a trivia quiz. Voters cannot be expected to keep in their minds every permutation of a document (be it federal or state or local council) that directly affects their lives in myriad ways.

But neither is complete ignorance excusable.

Across the world, we are seeing populist movements on the left and right effectively feeding on ignorance and deliberate misinformation.

Most prominently, Donald Trump’s relationship with fiscal and monetary policy reality is almost non-existent.

But it is clearly permeating the Australian political discourse.

Just last week, Barnaby Joyce complained that he was One Nation’s treasury spokesman and not Jesus Christ when asked by ABC’s Sarah Ferguson about the impact of his party’s superannuation policy.

Even the Son of God would have put some thought into how a change to the $4 trillion super sector might affect the budget and various parts of the economy.

George Turner, delivering that first budget back in October 1901, was greeted with a large bipartisan cheer from the assembled parliament.

“Whatever our opinions on the fiscal question may be, we shall give each other credit for being animated by but one desire – to do that which is best for Australia, and fair, just, and equitable to all the states, and to all classes and sections of our community,” he declared.

And to do what is best also puts some onus on voters to take at least a passing interest in the budget.

Shane Wright is a senior economics correspondent.

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