Jim Chalmers trying to walk both sides of the street

Jim Chalmers is protecting the federal budget surplus amid growing calls for cost relief. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The boy from Logan is back – with a bang and some biff!

Jim Chalmers has returned from annual leave and, as the monetary druids are wont to say, is walking “a narrow path” to rhetorical and electoral success.

The Treasurer wants to keep Labor’s usual supporters onside, including the most vulnerable citizens and social-welfare lobby, as well as the masters of finance trading the currency and bonds.

The government’s economic standing is taking a battering as purchasing power slides and the Reserve Bank keeps its hand on the interest-rate rack.

Labor has full ownership of the estate, the good and bad; its opponents, lost and forlorn, now looking so yesterday.

On one side Chalmers spruiks low unemployment, a stunning achievement when you consider outcomes in peer rich countries.

On the other shore, Labor’s social program – on Tuesday night the Treasurer called it “opening more windows of opportunity, for more Australians” – is imperilled by sticky, nasty inflation.

One of Labor’s strong points is a budget bulked up with revenue, which if fortune and wisdom combine, may even see a cash surplus this year, following an expected $20bn bonanza in the year to the end of June.

Banking that dividend is smart, obviously, but the risk is Labor appears to be filling its boots while the “big squeeze” on families is getting worse.

Selling the “rebuilding fiscal buffers” message is the hard-headed job for the soft-hearted political pro who now represents the community that made him.

But to maintain trust and broaden his appeal among the left rump of his party, Chalmers is muscling up to the enterprise class, with his home brand “values-based capitalism” that he launched in an essay over the summer.

In his speech, there were several pokes in the eye for the market rules, small government crowd, a dwindling group to be sure, as Australia edges more interventionist and union-friendly on its growth model.

Chalmers has a full dance card, as he revamps the spurned Productivity Commission and the RBA (with a new governor), road tests the vogue “wellbeing” framework, and releases an employment white paper and intergenerational report.

All the while, the Treasurer is hoping the disco music doesn’t stop because of the “severe turbulence” he sees ahead for us.