Porridge back on the menu as budget pressures grow

"Everyone's having oatmeal, don't get any ideas."

Two decades ago Peter Costello and two staffers sat down to breakfast at the Pierre Hotel in New York, where the then treasurer was attending IMF and World Bank meetings.

The minister took a moment to study the menu.

Australia's dollar was about as weak as it is now and Costello immediately saw that a full continental breakfast would cost more than $100 (Australian) a head.

"I'm not going to Senate estimates to explain breakfasts that cost more than a family dinner… you're kidding yourselves," Costello told his staff, according to David Gazard, the treasurer's then senior political advisor.

"That was it. No one demurred. Everyone ate oatmeal," Gazard recalled this week.

"That was him. He always wanted to be within his means. If someone dragged up the remittances from the trip and saw the breakfast, it would look out of touch. And he knew it. He was on it all the time."

"When we got phone bills, he made us sign every page from Telstra saying none of this was for personal use."

A rare display of restraint

Costello's bleak gruel feels like a story from a long-forgotten Oliver Twist era of budget austerity.

Such restraint — symbolic as it might have been — feels rare these days.

Even as signs grow of a more challenging budget outlook for state, territory and federal governments in coming months and years.

Memories of that breakfast were reprised this week amid a series of revelations about eye-stinging sums spent on travel by ministers and government officials.

Communications Minister Anika Wells drew a barrage of unwelcome coverage after it emerged in estimates that she and two officials spent almost $100,000 on New York flights for a social media ban event during the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Wells was scheduled to fly with the prime minister but was delayed because of the Optus Triple Zero crisis.

When she eventually arrived in Manhattan, the minister MC'd an event to showcase Australia's ban, introducing the EU leader and the Greek prime minister.

For the formal proceedings, Wells spoke for no more than about seven minutes.

The government insists the minister's travel was in line with official rules, and there's no doubt the social media legislation she's overseeing is trailblazing and globally significant.

But many are questioning whether her attendance at the UN event was essential given the prime minister, foreign minister and US ambassador Kevin Rudd were already there.

'Does not pass the pub test'

"This minister made a deliberate choice to step on a plane, to charge taxpayers $100,000 to jet off to New York and make a six-and-a-half minute speech," Sussan Ley said on Friday.

"That simply does not pass the pub test for any struggling Australian family."

Wells is also facing questions over more than $3,000 billed to taxpayers for a trip in June to Adelaide from Brisbane that included attending a friend's birthday party.

But the minister is not the only public figure to feel heat on spending.

Senate estimates revealed the Future Fund spent $20,000 to send the CEO's then-executive assistant on a business class trip to "assess hotels" in the US and negotiate room rates.

ACT senator David Pocock asked why a phone call wouldn't have sufficed.

"What was she checking? The firmness of the beds?" Pocock pressed.

"If you ask the average punter out there whether the Future Fund needed to send someone … to go and check out some hotels, they'd probably say 'yeah, nah'," he added later.

National debt rises

Voters may say something a little stronger than "yeah, nah" about such spending in coming months as Australia's fiscal position gets more attention.

It's been a long time coming, but there's a growing sense that budget politics might soon become more spicy.

There has been a flood of reports about federal agencies being told to tighten their belts and find savings, including at the CSIRO, which is shedding staff.

Victoria's government this week announced more than 1,000 public service job cuts, something ratings agency S&P Global warned would not "materially change" the state's debt-laden outlook.

On Thursday, the independent Parliament Budget Office (PBO) revealed that state, territory and federal budgets worsened over the last year.

"This deterioration is despite improved forecast revenue in each jurisdiction, which has been more than offset by increases in forecast expenses," the office said.

"As such, the timeline for achieving a national net operating surplus is no longer in the forward estimates."

As a result, national net debt will increase to $1.26 trillion in 2028-29 from $1 trillion this financial year, when taxpayers will fund an extra $48.1 billion for interest payments, equivalent to about $1,700 per person.

The PBO's analysis is that the national fiscal position will "remain sustainable". But with one big caveat: growth in spending will need to fall "more into line with that of revenue".

In the world of politicians, such language points to difficult trade-offs and disappointment for voters. In reality, they mean taxes will need to rise or spending will need to fall, or some combination of both.

Which is why stories of spectacular travel bills are so potent.

How does a treasurer tell households the government will no longer continue a $300 energy rebate when it's happy to blow $100,000 on three flights?

Taking away temporary rebates and budget sweeteners is never popular, even if economists make good arguments for doing so.

But when it coincides with perceptions of faltering spending discipline, voters are unlikely to thank you.

Jacob Greber is political editor of ABC's 7.30 program.