Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Thatcher were fond of likening government to a household.

A household that spent more than it earned was headed for trouble, they argued.

They had a point, up to a point. The conservative side of politics has extolled the virtue of fiscal rectitude. And it is a worthy cause. Without it, society's ideals cannot be met.

But there is more to house-keeping and government budgeting than ensuring you are on the right side of Micawber's equation.* 

Yes, it is better to spend less than you earn. But what you spend the money on is of equal importance. It tells us about the household’s or government’s values and good sense.

After such a short time in government we now have a list of big-ticket items which show some warped values and very little common sense – a bit like a household determined to meet a budget but spending on junk food, pay TV and a guzzling SUV, but cutting down on toothpaste and fresh fruit. 

We can start on the spending side with the decision this week by the Government to buy 58 jet fighters at a cost of $12 billion.

Perhaps the most informed Liberal in the country on the fighter, MP and defence analyst Dennis Jensen, called it a "stuff-up". 

We have no use for these $200-million-a-piece aircraft. Indonesian is not invading. If there is a threat to our north, the aircraft is useless. Which Jemaah Islamiah cell in which Indonesian city is the strike fighter going to rain down upon? 

And then we have the $30 billion submarine project. Why is this to take priority over even other more sensible defence spending, let alone education and health? 

Then we have Sydney's second airport and all the roads going to it. Infrastructure Australia tells us that this is not a good return on investment. Sydney Airport says it still has unused capacity. But the Howard battler voters in the west must be retained.

Still on the spending side, we have the lavish paid parental leave scheme for women on large incomes, but they would have their babies and go back to work anyway.

Then there is the massive spend on offshore refugee processing.

Lastly, we have the huge payments to big polluters under the "direct action" scheme. Those same big polluters would have changed their habits more quickly and at no cost to government under a carbon-tax regime.

The values here are warped. Insecurity drives the government to spend on big defence toys. We have to bribe companies into doing the right thing by the environment. And we will show you how tough we are by bullying the most vulnerable.

Now to tax. Perhaps the most insidious element of the government's budget strategy is the government's apparent inclination to doing nothing. As wages and prices rise with inflation, more people will be pushed into higher tax brackets, especially low and middle income earners. They will cop most of the burden. High-income earners, on the other hand, will have a comparatively lower burden -- because most of the income of the rich is already taxed at the high rate. 

The conservative government loves the misguided Labor-Green scare campaign over increasing the GST. It means they can back off increasing a tax which ensures that the very rich pay at least some tax in their lives. And the Government can just wait until bracket creep pushes wage and salary earners into higher brackets – no questions asked.

The GST should be increased and applied to everything – including unprocessed food, education and health. Guess who spends the greater share of their income on these things?

The warped values here are to tax lower income people more and let higher income people off the hook; to cynically use scare campaigns; and to punish any public servant who dares point it out. Secrecy rather than openness is a core value of this government.

The abolition of the mining and carbon tax will help the big miners and their (mainly) foreign shareholders.

How the Coalition sold this as being good for ordinary families is propaganda par excellence. Another core value is deceit. 

The fact the mining tax is not raising very much money is not an argument for its abolition, but an argument for its redesign.

Now to cuts in spending. Access to the disability allowance is to be cut, but stricter means testing for access to the aged pension is not. But indexation of the aged pension is to be trimmed and the qualification age raised.

These changes will profoundly affect the less well off. Meanwhile people with million dollar homes and quite high other assets will continue to draw the pension, or even a tiny part-pension and all the government subsidies that come with it. 

We add to this the GP tax – the $6 co-payment. This will discourage the less well-off from seeing GPs and cost more in the long run (or does the Coalition want to kill off the sort of people who would struggle with a $6 co-payment?). 

It would have been much fairer to impose the GST on all medical spending (including cosmetic surgery and natural remedies) and raise the Medicare rebate for primary care.

The whole tax strategy of the Government is to impose greater burdens on lower- and middle-income people and leave the wealthy unscathed.  Unfairness permeates the values behind the Government’s thinking.

Good house-keeping requires not just the balancing of the household budget but the equitable spread of household income to all people in the house. It also requires setting priorities for spending that lead to a happier, healthy household. 

The values of this government, though, are to bow out and tell the weak and vulnerable to fend for themselves on the specious ground that looking after them is "unsustainable" and "unaffordable". Of course, it is unaffordable if you spend your money on fighter jets and submarines – a bit like a household buying a home theatre and living on fatty junk food.

And lastly, good households in good communities do not flaunt that they are better than the rest – We're a knight; We're a dame.

Ah yes, we will have a balanced budget all right, but at the cost of being armed to the teeth and sick as dogs.

(*Micawber from Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield said: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.")