In the myriad of messages Anthony Albanese delivered in his prime ministerial news conference on Thursday there were three in particular that he really wanted to land.
The first was that the economic challenges buffeting Australia were going to be around for some time yet.
As the political focus shifts towards what responses the Government is planning in its Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook in December, Albanese is trying to moderate voters’ expectations.
He wants to make clear that there are no instant solutions.
Even if the war in Iran was to end tomorrow, the pounding it’s inflicting on the economy through the petrol pump will continue for many months yet.
And there are no quick fixes to the structural issues fuelling the home-grown inflation problem either.
Recovery is going to take time.
Albanese’s second key message was directed as much to his own nervous backbench as it was to average Australians.
He wanted to assure them that whatever responses his Government came up with would keep faith with core Labor values.
It not so few words, he was promising that there would be no cuts to health care or education or welfare.
These were core Labor commitments, and no measure of economic or political pressure would shift his Government from protecting them.
Senior sources tell me it is the same message he has been delivering in recent meetings of Cabinet’s Economic Review Committee as it has worked its way through a range of options to cut spending in the MYEFO.
Those sources say there won’t be any “big bang” cuts, although some of the proposals for reining in the burgeoning public service are hardly small.
It’s more likely that the pain will be spread across departments.
The principal objective is to save money without affecting service delivery.
That is forcing the ministers to be forensic in their examination of costs, looking for a tweak here and a tightening there rather than axing entire programs.
Albanese’s one inviolable rule is that there will be no austerity measures. That, he says, is not the Labor way.
He also made clear in his news conference that he is not attracted to short-term relief measures either.
No one should expect a return of the fuel excise cut.
The cost of that sort of support is big and the impact is short.
Several sources say Albanese is more focused on structural change that marries moderate cost with long-term effect.
In his news conference, he singled out previous changes such as fee-free TAFE, bulk billing incentives and cheaper medicines as examples of reforms that offer that long-term relief.
The third message Albanese wanted to land was the most important and the one that voters will find the most difficulty in accepting.
It is a message of hope.
Things are crook at the moment.
Inflation is stuck way above the Reserve Bank’s target range with no sign of moderating, despite four interest rate rises this year.
The chance of a fifth rate hike on Melbourne Cup day next Tuesday looms as a short-odds favourite.
That is really going to hurt families with mortgages.
It would mean that monthly repayments on the average Australian home loan will have increased by $600 since January.
That is an additional $7200 a year families have to find to service their loans in a falling real estate market.
So, what is Albanese’s message of hope?
That the inflation challenge will pass. Eventually.
The official prediction from Treasury and the Reserve Bank though, is that things won’t change for the better until the second half of next year.
That means the next 12 months are going to be tough, with inflation remaining above target and the full impact of four — and probably five — interest rate hikes dulling the broader economy.
An electorate that was told by this Government 12 months ago that the worst of the inflation challenge was now behind it will find that assurance of hope hard to swallow.
They have only one message for the Government: do better.
Mark Riley is the Seven Network’s political editor
Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.
Sign up for our emails