Nicholas Stuart | Much like ChatGPT, the federal budget provided a perfectly adequate response

"A sensible budget, but one that doesn't scare the big end of town. That's a no-no! So don't touch the stage-three tax cuts or tackle big tax-reform issues. Great! Now add some floss around the edges, you know, so we can still pretend we're really a social democratic party after all. Something for older, unemployed women. Yes, that's great and look, it's just steady-as-she-goes. Not so much Labor-like as Labor-lite. Ideal."

Chalmers got his wish and the headline-grabbing claim: back in the black.

It almost seems churlish to point out, as did the Australian Financial Review's Phil Coorey, that the key to that was getting Treasury simply to change the way it calculates. Shift Future Fund earnings across to the bottom line and, miraculum deus, suddenly all those red numbers turn to black. Using exactly this methodology, the Coalition would have delivered a $7.2 billion surplus in 2018. Chalmers only delivered $4.2bn last week but who cares? It's in the black and adds up - and delivered the crucial headlines.

Nobody's thrilled by this budget but nobody was pissed, either: exactly the reason it could just have been created by ChatGPT. Anyone using this program quickly realises (when, for example, creating an opinion column for The Canberra Times) that computers aren't capable of reflection. They spit out answers incredibly quickly but what they don't do is add dollops of originality. They don't have (yet) the capacity to come up with suggestions about how you could really create a better world.

This budget achieved exactly what it set out to accomplish - nothing. After a lot of whirring and clanking, it tinkered at the edges to churn out a perfectly competent, respectable, and adequate political response. For the present. As for future fiscal and social challenges, well, we're told they will all be dealt with later. The tragedy this time is Labor has made no effort to turn a (temporary) flash into a (lasting) good.

Sadly, this budget hasn't attempted to achieve anything apart from shifting the ballast, very slightly, from the right to the left.

I've been writing this column for more than two decades now. About a quarter of these have been devoted to politics and over that period, judging from reader responses, concerns have changed. Instead of worrying about comparatively minor issues, people are now genuinely anxious about the big problems facing society. The environment, security, and crucially, social issues. This budget shows Anthony Albanese is determined to govern using last century's playbook: updating it a bit here and there, yes, and finessing the plays, but basically just making sure everything runs smoothly along the rails.

Don't have a real program for serious change? Just touch-up the paintwork around the edges.

Who can blame the PM? It's exactly the strategy that kept John Howard in the Lodge for so long and Albanese believes it promises him the same longevity. The problem is it embeds and nurtures the seeds of failure. This explains the biggest misstep so far of his period in office, the promise to part-fund a shiny new football stadium for Hobart.

This was so transparently an attempt to keep people happy by providing bread-and-circuses that it's already begun to unravel. Unfortunately, that's where the personality of the leader begins to kick in. Instead of pausing for reflection and rethinking a commitment to fund the sportsground and measuring it against other better and more vital expenditure, like public housing, Albanese is doubling down and pressing ahead.

Perhaps the stadium will be built and some people will love it, but what's more important is the PM will begin picturing himself as "courageous" and "decisive" for going ahead with a scheme that's not bad, but not good either. Courtiers will flatter him and, slowly but inexorably, he too will begin to fall into the well of believing himself somehow, well, different. He will, quite understandably, think the path that led him from a kid in public housing all the way to the top had far more to do with his own personal brilliance, grit and determination than chance or flukes of timing.

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This represents the point at which everything changes. Hubris inevitably overtakes every prime minister - some are just consumed by self-regard faster than others. That's why wise kings used to employ a court jester. These had the task of, effectively, keeping the ruler grounded. The fool got away with speaking truth to power by pretending to be a simpleton but it meant he could get away with telling the truth.

Now, instead, we have monarchs who play the fool and PMs who, accustoming themselves to the pomp and circumstance of power, the perks of the job, and the bright lights of overseas travel, travel further and further from the council flats where they played as children.

Like a fool, it's the job of columnist to stand back and point out the inconsistency between what politicians say and what they do. Unfortunately, this is becoming easier and easier. This isn't a problem with those drawn to politics but something more corrosive that's eating its way through the two-party structure.

This explains the surging strength of independents. They're not bound by the dictates of obsolete party platforms that hobble original thought and don't have to nod dutifully to factional party warlords stacking ballots to gain petty victories. Today we're seeing how individuals, like Senator David Pocock and (the factional independent) Andrew Leigh here in the ACT, can make a difference. Pocock is using his influence to play a far more significant role shaping the country's future than he ever could on the football field, or than his predecessor ever did.

So, although it's more usual to bemoan our politics rather than extol the system, as I close one of my last four columns, it's worth noting that things are better today than they were at the turn of the century.

Politics in Australia is still dynamic - it just requires our participation to keep it that way.