In the lead-up to the main event, as excitement reaches fever pitch, the contenders go through the usual pre-bout rituals. Mouthing off on the radio, flexing of muscles, throwing a few feints, dizzying displays of fancy footwork and any number of pugnacious threats. Not surprisingly, the Australian taxpayer is left reeling; punch-drunk after eight months of bruising budget speculation.

One exciting pre-match event for the 2014 extravaganza was The Spectator Australia’s warm-up tussle on 23 April between a feisty Treasurer Joe Hockey and our own heavyweight Andrew Neil. Following a polished speech from the podium, Mr Hockey got down into the ring with Mr Neil and off came the gloves. Long versed in this bloodsport at the BBC, The Spectator’s publisher came out with a series of sharp, punishing jabs, challenging Mr Hockey to name a single country in the G20 for whom Australia’s current fiscal position isn’t an object of envy.

For several moments Mr Hockey, possibly stunned by the fact that he had presumed he was in friendly, conservative territory, seemed to sway on his feet.

But then came the counter-attack. ‘Well, you’re benchmarking us against countries that are poorly performing. Our benchmark in Australia is to be the best in the world — that’s what we were and that’s what we want to be,’ snapped the Treasurer, to loud applause from the room. ‘We have to be at our best. They did not start in the same blessed position that we started in seven years ago. We had no net debt. We had 4 per cent unemployment. We have enjoyed the best terms of trade in the history of our nation. And what’s happened is we have dropped the ball over the last few years and we have allowed ourselves to be compared with the laggards. We want to compare ourselves with the best.’

All things considered, it was a good performance, and certainly won over the home crowd. Jingoistic, certainly, but more importantly, it was a solid blow against the creeping acceptance by many commentators that on so many issues Australia should simply run up the white flag and accept the lower standards that other once-affluent and successful first world countries have succumbed to. From porous borders to ludicrous levels of youth unemployment, our competitors have shrugged their shoulders and consigned too many issues to the ‘too-hard’ basket. As Joe sees it, Australia can and should punch economically well above its weight. We agree.

Yet Mr Neil, a determined and battle-hardened Scot, landed one particularly telling blow. ‘You said in London in 2012 that the age of entitlement was over… I would suggest to you that the age of entitlement here in Australia is alive and well.’ Mr Hockey ducked and weaved, claiming that ‘throwing a whole bunch of policies together and calling them entitlements was misleading’, but the wind was temporarily knocked out of his sails. Mr Neil followed up by asking when the budget would come back into the black, but no date was forthcoming.

Had Mr Neil known at that point that Mr Hockey was and is flirting with the idea of a ‘deficit tax’, it would have been a knockout there and then. As the British broadcaster and journalist listed the entitlements that appear to be remaining untouched in the budget, the idea that these will be funded by a great big new tax on income, no matter how temporary, might well have seen the Treasurer kissing the canvas.

The simple reality is that the suggestion of a deficit tax has hit the electorate like a kidney punch: a nasty, unexpected surprise that has seemingly come out of nowhere and is definitely against the gentlemen’s rules that the taxpayer thought the Coalition were playing by. ‘The only party which is going to increase taxes after the election is the Labor party,’ Tony Abbott announced a month before the 2013 election. Commitments don’t come any clearer than that.

Renewables, excessive welfare payments, the ABC and SBS, public service entitlements, disability support pensions, foreign aid, politicians’ entitlements, the revamped paid parental leave scheme, direct action: the list of government spending commitments that can be slashed or seriously tightened up is vast. Until those cuts have been made, the government has no philosophical, political or ethical justification for raising taxes. The Australian taxpayer is relying on Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey to stop the excessive spending of the Labor years and cut the waste.

A brand new tax suggests they’ve already thrown in the towel.