Commentary There can be no doubt that the 2021-22 Australian federal budget announced last week was simply a spending spree. Policy decisions announced since October 2020 will be adding $31 billion a year to the deficit by 2023-24. In the context of a strengthening economy and already bloated public debt, this marks the 2021-22 budget as one of the worst in living memory—popular with voters in the short-term perhaps, but irresponsible in any other sense. The government will need to go to the polls before the costs of this irresponsibility begins to permeate the consciousness of voters. Further, more spending will surely be on offer in the election campaign, whenever it comes. Will the federal Labor opposition take a different approach? During the 2007 election campaign, when a government up against the wall was on a similar spending spree, the then-Labor Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said, “Today I am saying …