As in most political discourse these days, opposition slogans can only get you so far. So it is with demands to slash “wasteful government spending”.

Cuts in government spending would be useful in taking the pressure off the Reserve Bank in setting interest rates, but where should they be made?

During the most recent election campaign, the Coalition announced it would abolish working from home for public servants. Bashing public servants seemed like a good idea at the time.

That policy lasted 35 days before the Liberals abandoned it.

They didn’t understand that not all public servants are in Canberra. Many are service providers all around the country, and they value the savings in travel time and childcare from working from home one day a week.

It’s instructive to review the Albanese government’s so-called “wasteful government spending”.

Among the new spending items, defence is by far the biggest. Yet not a word has been uttered by the Coalition or One Nation suggesting defence spending should be cut. What? Abandon AUKUS. Is that Coalition policy?

Next is increased bulk-billing rates for Medicare. In Parliament, the then health minister Tony Abbott, now federal president of the Liberal Party, repeatedly stated: “And that is why, Mr Speaker, the Liberal government is the best friend Medicare has ever had”.

These incantations followed Howard government increases in bulk billing rates after a public backlash against its earlier efforts to cut Medicare.

It would, therefore, be surprising if Angus Taylor or Pauline Hanson proposed reductions in bulk billing rates.

Next on the Albanese government’s new spending list are increased wages for childcare and aged-care workers. Is the Coalition or One Nation seriously proposing to cut the wages of these low-paid workers?

The federal government has allocated more than $22 billion over a decade for its Future Made in Australia program, which includes the development of critical minerals that are in global shortage and essential for defence purposes. Would the Coalition and One Nation scrap that too?

Beyond chanting the mantra of “cutting wasteful government spending”, the Coalition and One Nation are bereft of detail.

And here are a couple of inconvenient truths.

Figures released by the Australian Office of Financial Management reveal that the Coalition doubled Australia’s gross debt before Covid struck, from $280 billion in September 2013 to $568 billion in January 2020.

During Covid it added $608 billion, more than 60 per cent of our present gross debt of $981 billion.

Nevertheless, Australia remains one of only nine countries with a AAA rating from all three major ratings agencies.

Of course, the Albanese government should cut spending where it is feasible and fair to do so.

But where is the waste?

In income support for disadvantaged families? Or maybe the age pension? Assistance to the states with hospital funding? The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that provides affordable prescription medicines?

Or maybe the GST payments to the states, where the federal government collects the GST revenue and passes that revenue onto the states in the form of payments – an arrangement put in place by the Howard government.

If the Coalition and One Nation are serious about forming government after the next election, they should face the same scrutiny as the present government.

“Cutting wasteful government spending” is a slogan, not a policy.

 Craig Emerson is managing director of Emerson Economics. He was Australia’s trade minister in the previous Labor government and was an economic adviser to Bob Hawke