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On Thursday, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, introduced into parliament his omnibus bill to legislate the major elements of his budget. It neatly glues the changes to capital gains, negative gearing and trusts together with the tax cuts for millions of workers.

The opposition is calling foul and accusing the prime minister of another broken promise. They accuse Anthony Albanese of creating a political wedge by combining the measures, a tactic perfected by the Coalition in government and decried similarly by Labor in opposition.

The legislation forces the opposition to choose between its rejection of tightening the generous tax concessions and its support for tax cuts for 13 million Australians.

The only solution for the Coalition would be to persuade the Greens in the Senate to do them the favour of splitting the bill into two. This is, by the way, something the Greens are privately far from inclined to do.

There is no contrition in the upper echelons of the government about causing pain for the Coalition on this issue – especially when the government considers the Coalition has been running a cynical and dishonest campaign against the budget.

Rather than a cunning plan to trap the Liberals into voting against the tax cuts, the treasurer explained the decision to pull together contentious and uncontroversial measures into one bill as a virtuous one.

This virtue is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. The treasurer told parliament his legislation was all about making it easier “to own a first home”, which surely is a better way of aligning the tax treatment of workers and asset owners and funding these tax cuts.

“The reason these four elements are all together,” the treasurer said, “is that the negative gearing and capital gains tax changes fund these tax cuts for workers and small businesses.”

Chalmers rejected charges that the rush to legislate was pre-emptive damage control. He said that by passing the “core elements of the package quickly, we will give the market some certainty about the major changes while we consult the implementation details flagged in the budget”.

Back in 2018, the Turnbull government presented Labor with a similar challenge when it legislated then treasurer Scott Morrison’s controversial stage three tax cuts.

Labor reluctantly voted for the legislation. Key tacticians realised that no matter what amendments were moved, even if they failed, the record would show the party voted against tax relief.

It was not until Labor was back in power that it was able to rectify the palpable inequity of the stage three tax cuts. It was Albanese’s first big broken promise, which he managed with impunity.

>With a 94-seat majority in the lower house, the government will have no trouble in passing the bill. The real battle will be in the Senate, with the Greens the key to their success. The Greens ... are waiting to scrutinise the legislation before forming a negotiating position.

There is an explanation for this electoral acceptance of broken promises in a JWS Research poll in The Australian Financial Review. It found that 50 per cent of respondents believed it was okay to break a promise “if it was a tough decision in the national interest”. Only 37 per cent said it was better to stick to election promises, even if that meant delaying decisions.

That is precisely the way Minister for Housing Clare O’Neil characterises Labor’s latest broken promise. She says the housing market is skewed against first-home buyers. She notes huge demands on the budget from an aging population, defence spending requirements and stabilising the National Disability Insurance Scheme. O’Neil says a government is called on to do not the popular thing but the right thing. “That,” she says, “is our obligation as politicians for the country.”

Shadow industry minister Andrew Hastie, who Albanese keeps taunting as being after opposition leader Angus Taylor’s job, is not convinced by the “right thing” argument.

Hastie says the government is trying to put a “poison pill in this bill”,  that “the Australian people did not vote for an increase in their taxes and that is exactly what Labor is going to do”. He argues that “this is ultimately a vote for more taxes, which is why we will oppose it”.

This ignores the multibillion-dollar distortions embedded in the status quo and their contribution to the housing crisis.

Chalmers says if the Coalition votes against the bill they will be repeating the mistakes of the last term, when Taylor as shadow treasurer persuaded his colleagues to vote against tax cuts and Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund.

The tax debate has the opposing camps seemingly on different planets. Taylor told the joint partyroom meeting that the Coalition has the government “on the back foot” and that “we need to keep them on the back foot”.

A key minister scoffed at the claim. Indeed, the mood in the government is far from panic-stricken, with a source in the treasurer’s office saying that the debate is proceeding better at this stage of the game than they had bargained for.

Labor backbenchers report that the tax changes have been well received by their grassroots members as genuine Labor reform. They identify with the question Albanese rhetorically posed in the party room: “Why is it that a nurse, tradie or shop assistant pays more tax than someone earning from investments?”

At that meeting, Albanese thanked caucus for their unity on the tax changes. Concerns over possible impacts on small business and start-ups were confined to a committee and were not briefed.

Assurances were given that the issues were real and being addressed. This was foreshadowed in the budget papers, where it was spelt out that the government “will consult with stakeholders on key details of the capital gains tax reforms, including the treatment of early-stage and start-up businesses given the unique features of the tech and start-up sector”.

Albanese and Chalmers have rejected charges that they rushed the reforms and put them in the budget half-baked. The treasurer says it is usual for tax reforms to be dealt with in this way. He told parliament the Howard government’s GST reforms “required 30 bills” and extensive negotiations to be implemented.

The government played something of a trump card last Sunday when Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton argued the case for the reforms on Sunday Agenda. Charlton is an economist and a multimillionaire investor.

He said the new system was fairer in its treatment of capital gains. He admitted he would have lost out on some and gained out of others; but overall it was fairer and “I say that with some experience”.

The performance was too impressive for the shadow minister for housing, Andrew Bragg. He followed Charlton on the show and claimed the budget sell was in such a mess that the government had to send out Charlton.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but the opposition and elements of News Corp are running the line that the government is split between “Ruddites” – those who worked for Kevin Rudd as prime minister – and Jim Chalmers – who was in the camp of treasurer Wayne Swan and in the end no fan of Rudd.

This characterisation is a complete confection and is rejected by the prime minister and Chalmers. It is wishful thinking because, unlike the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments that were internally riven and vulnerable to the pushback from powerful vested interests over the planned mining super profits tax, this government remains united and cohesive.

Tax dominated the week. With a 94-seat majority in the lower house, the government will have no trouble in passing the bill. The real battle will be in the Senate, with the Greens the key to their success.

The Greens believe the tax grandfathering is too generous but are waiting to scrutinise the legislation before forming a negotiating position.

They did not accommodate the opposition’s preference for an extended inquiry beyond the automatic three weeks required by Senate legislation procedures.

This thwarts shadow treasurer Tim Wilson’s stated aim of making the government’s task in the Senate as difficult as possible. This week, he threatened to “use maximum leverage so Australians can have their say” by way of an extended inquiry travelling the nation.

Arithmetic is everything in the Senate and in the end the Coalition lacked the numbers to facilitate its politicking.

Greens spokesperson Nick McKim said the balance-of-power party would “use the inquiry to examine how and why Labor decided to leave in place the vast majority of tax handouts to the ultra wealthy”.

The report is due back on June 22, which gives the government time to pass the first tranche of its tax legislation in whatever amended form is agreed before the July winter break.

After the experience of the past term, the Greens would be wary of playing the sort of hardball they did on housing, only to see their spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, lose his seat and for the party to go backwards in the House of Representatives.

Greens leader Larissa Waters has already said she doesn’t intend to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

The government is banking on that view carrying the day in the Greens party room. •