In a recent column in The Australian Financial Review, assistant professor of economics Steven Hamilton offered a harsh comparison writing that Treasurer Jim Chalmers “is the worst treasurer since that other ‘Dr Jim C’, Jim Cairns”.

This critique was unfair – unfair to Cairns. Unlike Chalmers, Cairns lacked the benefit of hindsight to see the economic harm caused by rapidly increasing government spending and introducing anti-productivity measures in an already inflationary climate. Failing to learn from past mistakes is far, far worse than making them in the first place.