This election, we are told, is a clear choice between "The Economy" and the "Fair Go". Commentary following the -latest leaders' debate has -reinforced these battle lines. 
In fact, I've even heard news -reporters hitting bemused voters with vox-pops on the subject: "What's more important to you? Growth or fairness?" If that sounds like a silly question, it's because it is. Economic growth and equality are not enemies. In fact, in 2016, they should be the best of mates. But you can understand where the myth comes from.
Because for a while there, in the global deregulation period of the 1980s and '90s, a zero sum game -between growth and fairness did seem to exist. Governments around the world, including Australia's Hawke-Keating government, were able to drive growth by dismantling long-cherished aspects of how our -society worked: protection for manufacturing jobs, exclusive access to the domestic market for Australian banks, centrally-controlled wages, control over the Aussie dollar.
It did seem for a time that offering grand sacrifices to "The Economy" was indeed the way to drive growth.
For Malcolm Turnbull and the -Liberals this line of logic persists. The Liberals are always looking for opportunities to feed "The Economy" on blood sacrifices: penalty rates, public school funding, Medicare, -pensions, the minimum wage.
The latest is to offer up a $50 -billion pile of public money to -companies, regardless of their size, in the form of a huge tax cut.
"I know this feels unfair," they tell us. "But that's how you know it's good for The Economy. If we offer this up, the rest will just fall into place." This argument, however, is like -hypercolour T-shirts and cigarettes on aeroplanes. The world has moved on from the 1980s.
Today it is broadly agreed that the main impediment to global economic growth is not too much regulation or high taxes - it's inequality.
The world's major meeting of -global business leaders, the World Economic Forum in Davos, has in recent years identified inequality as the key threat facing the global economy.
The IMF and the World Bank have made similar observations.
Because instead of being churned through the economy by an active middle class, wealth is getting -increasingly sucked up to the top - and it's slowing things down.
After all, an Australian CEO might make 100 times what his average worker does, but that doesn't mean he's going to buy 100 cars or 100 -sandwiches from the local cafe.
And this is why this false choice between "growth" and "fairness" should be dropped. Everyone agrees a growing economy is a good thing.
The question for the major parties is how you achieve that growth. Do you slash away at the social safety net and company tax rates '80s-style? Or do you invest public money to reduce the gap in education and health between the very well-off and those at the other end? That's the actual choice this election.
Mark Morey is Unions NSW secretary