Budget 2022: Coffee, cold comfort and the Master of Coin

Treasurer Jim Chalmers with his morning caffeine hit. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The day after the budget is usually one that requires coffee.

A lot of it.

Which is why the favoured haunt, Aussie’s, famous for not-so-coincidental catch-ups, usually buzzes more than a staffer’s phone.

A cavalcade of business leaders shuffled into, past and around the cafe for hours on Wednesday offering everything from quotes to the media and business cards to MPs, especially those who now sit in cabinet.

The meeting spot, on good days considered to be the grounded Chairman’s Lounge, resembled more of a lonely hearts club.

Crickets instead of conversations could be heard, as chief executives sat solo for most of the day.

No one can criticise Qantas boss Alan Joyce for not understanding his passengers. The airline boss was seen strolling around looking like the QF Fokker flight to the nation’s capital he paid almost four figures for had been delayed for the third time.

Westpac boss Peter King looked as bemused as a customer opening their bank statement this time next week when the RBA no doubt lifts interest rates in the wake of inflation reaching its highest level in more than three decades, coming in at 7.3 per cent on Wednesday. A figure not seen since 1990. A time when Ice Ice Baby was storming the charts, and prescient for Budget 2022-23: The Sequel as it was indeed chillier than Canberra in July inside Parliament House’s most cosy corner.

The body count was like that wedding scene in Game of Thrones. The cause of death? Second hand embarrassment.

Outside in the Great Hall, the mood was more House of the Dragon. The “man of the hour”, as introduced by the ABC’s Laura Tingle, was Treasurer Jim Chalmers. He captivated the 900 people in the room with the conviviality of Tyrion Lannister after a few goblets of claret.

“Inflation is the dragon we need to slay,” Dr Chalmers told the packed National Press Club for the traditional Budget Boxing Day address. It was his first as coin counter in charge, his sixth time at the lectern, the crowd’s second this year.

More than 30 of his ALP colleagues enjoyed the fellowship with thought leaders and think tank subscribers. Not so much the food, which, from all reports, was more Michelin tyre than star.

Dr Chalmers was asked if the election promise of a $275 discount on power bills will be upheld in the wake of Treasury predicting retail electricity prices will increase by an average of 20 per cent nationally by Christmas.

“Yep. It’s in the budget.”

An answer which confused the audience more than the protein they were served.

Question Time followed and was a rowdy affair. “Stop yelling,” the unflappable Speaker Milton Dick warned the relatively unknown Member for Groom, Garth Hamilton.

It was here Dr Chalmers corrected the record and admitted he was starstruck by the question from new Nine political editor Charles Croucher and didn’t hear what he was being asked.

While he took a seat on the government front bench and proceeded to google hearing tests for “ears as big as mine”, the rest of the minor Labor cast got some airtime.

We learned the “Albanese government believes in women” and other sound bites pulled from Dorothy Dixers that continue to be more excruciating than tooth extraction.

The entire Coalition got a warning for interrupting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who buffered like a streaming service running off 3G while he was talking, coincidentally, about internet connectivity. Mr Albanese reconnected and retained the call to serve an entree to Peter Dutton’s Budget Reply which had top notes of bitterness and zing.

“The test for the Opposition Leader tomorrow night is to move out of the mindless negativity he’s focused on. A mob who never knew how to do anything other than oppose has returned to their spiritual home of the opposition benches, they’re more comfortable there Mr Speaker. They didn’t know what their last leader was up to so how would they know what Australians are up to,” Mr Albanese said to applause. The test tomorrow night is two fold, what is their alternative and … if they think it’s a good idea why didn’t they do it in their almost decade in office.”