Election 2022: For Anthony Albanese, there’s no safety in numbers

Anthony Albanese, left, protesting in his university days in 1983.

It’s sad, but true. The most likely next prime minister of Australia would fail HSC economics. Badly.

Having a brain-fade and forgetting a number is one thing: but Anthony Albanese having a stab at the unemployment rate – in the news every week – and coming up with 5.4 per cent, when the truth is 4 per cent – is something altogether different … around 190,000 jobs.

And that’s crucial when your economic platform is about creating more jobs and raising workers’ wages.

These were the two most basic numbers journalists could have hurled at the Opposition Leader. As any HSC economics student is expected to know, government receipts each year are $550bn and its expenses are $636bn. The difference – or budget deficit – $136bn … is added to our mounting government debt.

That debt, right now, is $872bn – according to the Office of Financial Management … not the trillion dollars bandied around today. The trillion-dollar debt is projected in the coming years by the federal budget and is much improved on where it was expected to be right now.

That’s why forgetting the cash rate is troubling for a future leader. Not many homeowners forget their mortgage rate is around 2 per cent … and they worry that rate may be pushed higher if inflation rises, prompting the Reserve Bank to act. Money markets say the cash rate of 0.1 per cent will be 3 per cent next year. So Anthony Albanese may next year have to explain to homeowners why their mortgage has increased from 2 to 5 per cent – costing an extra $900 a month for an average mortgage.

A competent HSC student would know the household savings ratio is 13.6 per cent; that the consumer price index is 3.5 per cent, and the wage price index is 2.3 per cent (to be fair, Anthony Albanese got these numbers out in a later interview, after the damage was done).

But there is a sting in this tail. Though Albanese’s forgetfulness gives an impression of a man uninterested in the so-called dismal science of economics, it has not always been so.

For Anthony Albanese holds a Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University.

As the university says: “We’re ranked top five in Australia for economics and our graduates include a former prime minister (Sir William McMahon), several premiers and leaders in the World and Reserve Banks.”

It could perhaps shortly be two prime ministers, unless the Opposition Leader keeps forgetting the basics.

Ross Greenwood is Sky News’s business editor