Chalmers’ saving grace will deliver a budget in black
Next week Jim Chalmers will deliver the economic equivalent of an Olympic gold medal if he announces the first surplus Labor budget achieved in more than 24 years. It will be an economic achievement built on the back of a resources sector that once again has over-delivered.
The budget has benefited from some notorious low-balling of coal and iron figures from the October budget update, but nonetheless it seems likely to be a hard-dollar surplus that we should all be proud of as a nation.
And we’ve got Chalmers to thank for that economic good fortune as Labor’s Treasurer.
While Anthony Albanese was off attending the nuptials for a radio shock jock who has fat-shamed women, asked a 14-year-old rape victim live on air “Right, is that the only experience you have had?” and hangs out with a convicted drug smuggler, Chalmers was hard at it, crafting his second budget. Albanese’s week is bookended by King Kyle’s wedding and the coronation of King Charles III while Chalmers plays master and commander of our economic hopes and fortunes.
Sure, the federal Treasurer had to find extra for a billion-dollar stadium in Tasmania that local ALP leader Rebecca White is opposed to, but it has been the reforms we already know about that show Chalmers is making a real difference in people’s lives.
Chalmers was reared by a single mum. He was chief of staff to treasurer Wayne Swan, who slashed payments to single mums in a vain attempt to deliver his own small surplus, so the fact Chalmers can right that wrong more than a decade later is doubly admirable. Chalmers has shown absolute loyalty to Swan, despite the latter being described by his former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, as “not up to the job” as treasurer. Swan’s legacy of falling short on every single promised budget surplus will stand in stark contrast to that of his apprentice turned master, Chalmers.
Chalmers, though, will be under pressure from the likes of Jenny Macklin, who knows only how to spend but never save. Savings, though, are the way for Labor to prove to the electorate the strength of Labor’s economic management credentials.
The budget surplus was unachievable by any of the Liberal treasurers in their last nine years in office. Josh Frydenberg was arguably on track until he was sideswiped by the Wuhan virus and the ensuing pandemic. Chalmers will have to stay resolute, though, and work to protect the savings to not only pay down debt but also reserve firepower for the second half of 2023 if the economy sours under Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe’s ham-fisted management of interest rate rises.
Nervous backbenchers and lurking rent-seekers and carpetbaggers, though, will have other plans for Australia’s hard-earned return of the budget to the black. Industry lobbyists will become more shrill. Mendicants for a plethora of causes will now all have their hand out rather than working harder for a hand up.
Chalmers, though, has shown real deftness in genuine sympathy for the issues all while maintaining fiscal rectitude.
Australia must fully fund its AUKUS commitments and it will be able to do so because of the work Chalmers has done. We need to continue to build our renewable future with great Queensland projects such as Copper String, powering our energy transition as a nation to be net zero by 2050 – again, this is possible only because of the work done in next Tuesday’s budget and those that are to come.
Not since Labor’s economic titan, Paul Keating, has the party had such a bright and capable treasurer. Keating is right on Foreign Minister Penny Wong, even if he’s wrong on China, but despite the attacks from the Albanistas his record as treasurer will never be diminished. Keating stands as a great economic reformer of the modern Labor era. While some saw Chalmers as more clearly in the Jim Cairns mould while he was in opposition, the past 11 months have revealed a future prime minister in our midst.
The Labor surplus delivered by Chalmers is an economic wave that may well take him all the way to the Lodge. Next Tuesday there will be much wider public awareness of what many who’ve known of Jim’s past achievements have seen as a leader in waiting. The relationship between leader and treasurer is always fraught with ambition. Think Keating and Bob Hawke, Peter Costello and John Howard. Swan was neither to Rudd or Julia Gillard, but it’s fair to say Frydenberg will be a future Liberal leader, just as Chalmers will succeed Albo in good time.
No government can deliver great achievements, build the nation and deliver a better society than the one they inherited without a treasurer who can balance the books, delivering targeted cost-of-living measures and growing our economy. I was a critic of the October budget and the political triaging needed after voters were told their power bills would go up by 56 per cent, but I’ve been impressed by the careful messaging in the lead-up to next Tuesday’s budget.
While there will continue to be debate about the Indigenous voice in the coming months, the practical improvement to all Australians’ lives and opportunities will be built on Chalmers’ surplus.
Finally a line in the sand where we save more than we spend as a federal government, not a moment too soon given the billions in the debt mountain. Chalmers should be recognised as one of Labor’s great treasurers, and for making a lasting contribution to our nation’s future the Albanese government is fortunate to have him as its Treasurer.
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