Andrew Bolt: It’s never Unlucky Jim’s fault, he just can't catch a break

Treasurer Jim Chalmers wants us to believe we’re getting poorer because of “political turbulence” in South Korea, rather than incompetence in Canberra. He keeps promising us the good times but then, bang, he gets hit with bad luck.

Jim Chalmers is the unluckiest Treasurer we’ve ever had. Unlucky Jim keeps promising us good times, but then – bang! – this genius gets hit by some incredible, unforeseeable, unprecedented bad luck.

You’re hurting, but please be clear: it’s never Unlucky Jim’s fault.

Since coming into government, he’s instead blamed his economic disasters on Russia, China, the Reserve Bank, the opposition, “global uncertainty”, war in the Middle East, “natural disasters”, global inflation, “busted supply chains”, the US election, the “energy transformation”, a global energy crisis, world “food security”, skill shortages and more.

Has any Treasurer ever had so much bad luck? Forget the ones who’ve recently had to deal with the Covid pandemic, the Global Financial Crisis, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had it easy.

No, Unlucky Jim is the great treasurer who just can’t catch a break.

Take Wednesday. Unlucky Jim handed down the mid-year Budget update which he claimed was a “responsible set of books” showing “very substantial progress” in cutting debt and guaranteeing our economy a “soft landing”.

Has any Treasurer ever had so much bad luck as Unlucky Jim Chalmers? Picture: Martin Ollman

This was an utterly bizarre way to announce we’re actually getting the exact opposite. In fact, after two surpluses, the government is now giving us deficits over the next four years totalling $143.9bn, $22bn worse than Unlucky Jim predicted in the May Budget. Plus weaker growth than predicted, too.

As for “soft landing”, Australians have instead got poorer per person in the past 21 months of this Albanese government, thanks to anaemic growth, high inflation and appalling productivity.

So what happened? Why is this government now lurching from surpluses to deficits which Unlucky Jim says will last a decade?

How are these deficits even possible when Unlucky Jim is luckily going to claw $7.3bn more in taxes from us over the next four years than he once predicted?

More taxes, yet bigger deficits. That’s a hell of a trick to explain away.

But Unlucky Jim has had plenty of practice with excuses and on Wednesday tried his most brazen yet.

Unlucky Jim has taken off the books a record $90bn of spending over four years – taking it ‘off-budget’ by calling it ‘investments’ instead. Picture: Martin Ollman

Well, said Unlucky Jim, this turnaround was all because of his terrible luck. This time he’s been hit by “a whole bunch of things that are unavoidable”, particularly “unavoidable spending”, including “slippage” in “important investments in areas like Medicare and medicines and pensions”.

“Unavoidable” spending?

How “unavoidable” was the extra $40m a year the government promised just last Tuesday to give its mates at the ABC?

How “unavoidable” was the extra $50m the government promised Pacific Islands last month for “climate change”? Or the latest $1.1bn blowout to the National Disability Insurance Scheme?

How “unavoidable” was hiring 15,000 extra public servants last financial year – coincidentally, extra voters for Labor?

This excuse of ‘unavoidable spending’ from a spendaholic treasurer beats even Unlucky Jim’s comic excuse last week for interest rates not coming down. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Or giving childcare workers a massive 15 per cent pay rise over two years?

It amazes me that journalists at Unlucky Jim’s press conference on Wednesday didn’t laugh in his face when he trotted out his latest excuses for delivering us a high-inflation, low-growth economy that’s making Australians poorer and burying the nation in debt.

This excuse of “unavoidable spending” from a spendaholic treasurer beats even Unlucky Jim’s comic excuse last week for interest rates not coming down, when he blamed everything conceivable – even inconceivable – other than his government’s massive spending, green tape, and productivity-killing pro-union laws.

What scapegoats he offered: “Weakness in the Chinese economy, some policy uncertainty in the US, conflicts in the Middle East and eastern Europe, political turbulence in places like Korea and France – there’s a lot of global economic uncertainty.”

Seriously? Chalmers wants us to believe we’re getting poorer because of “political turbulence” in South Korea, rather than incompetence in Canberra?

If you think I’m too hard on Unlucky Jim, note that I’ve really been too kind. I’ve bought his spin that the budget deficits for the next four years will add up to “only” $143.9bn.

But even that’s a con, I’m afraid.

See, Unlucky Jim is also Tricky Jim. He’s taken off the books a record $90bn of spending over four years – taking it “off-budget” by calling it “investments” instead. You know, like it’s all gone on dead-cert, money-back sure things.

This spending includes some of the government’s money-sprays on green energy, including “rewiring the nation” and cheap loans to green carpetbaggers, plus its election handout to children of the privileged – cancelling $16bn in student loans.

What a mess. Seems it’s not really Chalmers who’s unlucky. It’s the rest of us, who have him as our Treasurer.