There’s a particular kind of media week where the volume of the coverage is inversely proportional to how much the average person is actually affected. This was one of those weeks.

Labor’s proposal to increase tax on the top one per cent. Specifically, about $400,000 more over a lifetime for those earners. The coverage has been wall to wall. The op-eds have been breathless. You’d think they’d announced a forced organ harvest program.

There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes from watching the same political movie over and over again. You know the plot, you know the ending, and yet somehow you find yourself sitting there hoping this time it’ll be different. That’s pretty much how I feel every time the resource tax debate bubbles back to the surface in this country.

It’s been doing the rounds again lately, and honestly, the conversation online has been equal parts enlightening and maddening. Someone pointed out that LNG companies are apparently patting themselves on the back over a $22 billion tax figure — plastered on a billboard at Canberra Airport, no less — without any context about what their actual profits were. That’s a classic move. Throw out a big number, let people feel vaguely impressed, and hope nobody asks the follow-up questions. It’s the political equivalent of telling someone your salary without mentioning you blew the rest on Bitcoin.