Scott Morrison's budget has given little thought to this election's new youth voter base. This could prove damaging to prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose positive image with young people is fast waning, as the similarities to the Abbott-era emerge in the minds of young people.
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For the time that is supposed to be the most exciting time to be an Australian and/or alive, young people were presented with a painfully boring budget. There was certainly little for young people, and especially first-time voters, to get inspired about weeks from an election.
The budget – the so-called economic plan, unusually close to an election – is focused on "jobs and growth". Innovation, yesterday's buzzword, was replaced with incessant chants of "jobs and growth", with "jobs and growth" for young people, too.
The government announced a three-step paid internship program which will see 300,000 work placements created annually for people under 25 from April next year. The young workers will be given training, a placement and then the business which takes them on will receive a financial incentive to hire their intern and money to pass on to them over a six-month period.
It may appear generous but the scheme's interns would only receive between $4 and $6 an hour for between 15 and 25 hours a week on top of their income assistance payments. It will cost the government $751.7 million over four years.
Morrison described it as "true work for the dole", but without careful oversight, this program is ripe for rorting. The interns at the heart of the scheme will be fodder for exploitation. It's not innovative to exploit young job seekers for the benefit of employers who are incentivised and keen to take on cheap employees. It's an approach which should feel inappropriate.
Meanwhile, the government once again proved that it was possible to expend a multitude of words with the end of result of saying nothing, which is precisely what they wanted said. The government's education statement wallowed in figures and statistics – impossible to compare directly – and lavished in grand sentences about the Australian higher education sector.
But the government heads to the election without a firm higher education policy, having extended the consultation period and put off fee deregulation until 2017. Everything is on the table – and that should be worrying.
As the government kicks the deeply unpopular political football of university-fee deregulation to the other side of the election, young people are left without the chance for a rigorous higher education policy discussion.
Nor was there any mention of housing affordability measures and hardly a skerrick on climate change. As a component of the election campaign, this budget misses the points youth voters are interested in.
For most young Australians, this budget is not for us. We don't benefit. We haven't been offered our election pitch. After the political turmoil of the recent years – in which many first-time voters will have had their first moments of political awareness – the promise of a long-term benefit, in four years or in the mysterious time beyond the forward estimates, is not going to lure the youth vote.
If it didn't have to always answer to the here and now, politics might be more effective. But we are the political generation which is only used to the here and now – the constant change over in party, policy and prime minister.
This is why first-time voters and young people might see no reason why change shouldn't happen again at the election.
Jasper Lindell is a year 12 student and was the youngest reporter at the budget lock-up.
