A treasurer stares at a government’s political mortality

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has looked his government’s political mortality in the face – and he is worried.

In a rousing off-the-cuff speech to the Australian Workers’ Union and some of his ministry colleagues in Perth this week, Chalmers revealed both elements of Labor’s re-election plans and a fear that his party’s agenda could disappear in a single term in office.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says Donald Trump’s US election win wasn’t a wake-up call – the government already knew the political score.Credit: Peter Rae

Since Donald Trump’s stunning US election win last week, much has been written about how he tapped into working-class Americans’ concerns about the cost of living.

While the headline economic numbers about the US have been exceptional – low unemployment, wage growth that hit more than 7 per cent earlier this year, slowing inflation and one of the fastest growth rates in the developed world – it wasn’t enough to overcome Trump’s claims that the economy was in its worst condition ever.

That analysis has been extrapolated to Australia, where the economy has continued to grow, inflation is slowing, unemployment is low, wages are growing faster than prices, and official interest rates are still below those in the US, Britain and New Zealand (where the country has been in recession since the middle of last year).

Despite the improvements, Australians’ living standards have deteriorated. That’s what voters are feeling.

Chalmers said Trump’s re-election wasn’t a wake-up call – the government already knew the political score.

“The truth is we didn’t need an election on the other side of the world to tell us to focus on the main game, which is the cost of living,” he said.

“We didn’t need an election on the other side of the world to tell us we don’t have time as a governing party to stuff around on second-tier issues. We have to stay focused on what really matters, and we are. That’s why the cost of living is our major focus as a government.”

After declaring he knew the lessons of Trump’s victory, Chalmers turned his attention to the government’s own electoral fortunes.

This week, polls from this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor and Newspoll showed the Coalition with a clear edge on the primary vote over Labor. On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition is just in front – not enough to claim a majority, but enough to drive Labor into minority.

Chalmers didn’t mention the polls, but their implications – a one-term government – clearly weighed on what he told the gathered unionists.

“It’s not enough to … kind of jag a single term and hope that we can cling on to as many of the gains that we made in two-and-a-half or three years,” he said.

“That’s not enough for us. It’s not enough for us to have come this far and then to only come this far. We’ve got much more work to do.”

Jim Scullin, the last prime minister to lead a single-term government.Credit: Fairfax Media

Chalmers knows his Labor history. The last single-term government was that of Jim Scullin, the country’s unluckiest prime minister, who took Labor into office just days before the Wall Street crash of 1929 that started the Great Depression. At the 1931 election Scullin was swept from power, with the party’s primary vote collapsing by almost 22 per cent.

Just because it last happened a long time ago does not mean the Albanese first-term government can’t lose office.

Chalmers also used his address as a call to arms for Labor and unions to target Peter Dutton and the Coalition.

“What we need to convey to the Australian people is: if they go back to those guys, they will go backwards. If they go back to the worst elements of a bad government, they’ll go backwards in tangible ways – wages and Medicare, out-of-pocket health costs, and in all of these ways that we’re talking about,” he said.

“When they come after housing and when they come after super, people will be worse off in tangible ways, and that’s what we need to alert people to.”

With a handful of dot points on a card, Chalmers’ speech went to the issues plaguing a government that believes it has delivered a broad policy agenda in challenging economic times but which is criticised for timidity and an inability to articulate a long-term vision.

A government that could be consigned to history within months.

Chalmers noted NFL great Tom Brady, who, in early 2016 and ahead of the play-off game for that year’s Super Bowl, argued: “I didn’t come this far to only come this far”. It was Brady saying that while getting to the pointy end of the season was good, it didn’t mean much if he didn’t get any further.

Brady’s team, the New England Patriots, were defeated by the Denver Broncos, who would go on to claim that year’s Super Bowl.

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