The federal government has lost control of the economy, just when it should be firing

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the PM's XI vs Pakistan cricket match at Manuka Oval in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

These are the two days in December that should tell all Australians they’d better move from alertness to alarm and to prepare for anything but a Happy New Year.

On Wednesday, we learned that the economy had slowed all-but to a stop and was sliding towards recession – arguably, it was already there, in per-head terms - even despite the tens of billions of dollars being thrown at it by massive government spending and half-a-million migrants pouring into the country over the past year.

Disturbingly, that reality was a surprise to all the experts – from Treasury and the Reserve Bank down; and, trust me, down goes a long, long way when you are talking ‘experts’.

OK, but at least our political leadership is on top of this and immediately sprang into action?

Did I say it was time to switch the dial to alarm? Maybe, dial that up to panic.

On the very same Wednesday, we had the prime minister – on one of his rare visits down under – sunning himself, literally, broad-hat and tieless shirt, at the cricket.

Oh well, all that international flying really is a tough gig. Even in Air Kanga One.

And while the prime ministerial cat, so to speak, was away – mentally if not, mostly, physically - all the mice otherwise known as cabinet ministers, were at play.

The minister for destroying our energy system, Chris Bowen, was also literally sunning himself in Dubai, along with close to 100,000 other carbon dioxide-belching fellow, literally, travellers, plotting to accelerate the destruction.

Bowen’s like some literary invention of a horror fiction writer. Except of course he’s real, and his malevolence is exactly matched by his bottomless stupidity.

Mice numbers two and three are the hapless and hopeless duo of Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles.

The best thing that can be said about them is at least they aren’t embarked on directly trying to destroy the economy.

That ambition’s left to mouse number four: the dishonestly titled employment minister Tony Burke.

In a sane, slightly less stupid world, you really wouldn’t credit it: that on the very day after we got the sobering GDP numbers, flashing all sorts of warning lights, Burke sealed his deal with the two out-there senators to seriously damage business and job prospects.

Minerals Council chief Tania Constable summed Burke’s deal up: it declared war on the Australian resources sector.

The destruction of jobs and of businesses actually goes much wider and deeper, but just think about this fundamental – or rather, foundational, for the Albanese government – stupidity.

The entire Australian life rests on the export earnings of the resources industry.

Without we’d have a federal budget that looked like Victoria’s, indeed worse than Victoria’s.

We’d have a dollar at US20c. We’d have inflation like Argentina’s.

And here we have a government, a completely out-of-control minister – like all his colleagues – declaring war on it.

Oh yes, and then there’s mouse number five: the Treasurer Jim Chalmers; the man who should be corralling the other mice while the cat’s (permanently) away.

What’s the next stop on the dial after panic?