Why Javier Milei is today’s most exciting politician

Javier Milei promised the most fascinating liberal economic experiment the world has seen in a long time.

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Someone recently asked me who was the most interesting political leader in the world today.

There’s no doubt President Donald Trump is interesting. He’s strong, he’s courageous but he’s something of an economic populist. Sadly, it’s obvious our own PM generates very little international excitement. For him, politics is a game, which he plays well. But no one out of Australia is inspired by his policies or convictions.

No, in many ways the most interesting leader today is President Javier Milei of Argentina.

For years, Argentina ran what was called the Peronist economic model, named after the political party founded by Juan Peron – husband of Evita. The Peronist model will be familiar to many Australians because we are increasingly applying it ourselves. It involves ever-increasing government expenditure on welfare, massive budget deficits, the empowerment of a select few trade union leaders, the propping up of companies and industries that don’t make money anymore, and increased taxes, particularly on industrious, creative entrepreneurs who make money producing goods and services that the public really want.

As always, the results of these policies were catastrophic. By 2023 Argentina’s annual inflation rate was over 200 per cent, it’s budget deficit 5 per cent of GDP, it had to borrow from the IMF because the government was unable to sell Argentine government bonds, the poverty rate in Argentina was over 50 per cent, and per capita GDP had been steadily declining for some years. In 2023 real incomes were lower than in 2007.

Argentine congressman and presidential candidate for the La Libertad Avanza Alliance, Javier Milei, greets supporters during the closure of his electoral campaign in Cordoba, Argentina.

So it was a pretty sad story, to say the least. A country rich in natural resources with a sophisticated population that had been, in per capita terms, one of the 10 richest countries in the world in 1900 was reduced to economic ruin by statism.

No one seemed to be able to do anything about it. Any suggested change to the economic model was fiercely opposed by the rent-seekers, and they were pervasive. But then something incredible happened. A candidate entered the 2023 election campaign called Javier Milei, an economist who promised to introduce a radical economically rational program to get the country back on its feet. Incredibly, the public decided that Milei was genuine and filled with enthusiastic conviction. They took a punt on him.

Milei promised big cuts to government expenditure, a massive program of deregulation, and a slashing of the power of vested interest groups such as major corporate and trade union leaders.

He promised the most fascinating liberal economic experiment the world has seen in a long time.

Now, just under two years later, we can see the results of this program. They make for fascinating reading and should be the focus of part of the debate at next month’s so-called productivity roundtable.

First, Milei cut government expenditure by a massive 30 per cent in his first year. That was the largest reduction in government expenditure in Argentina’s history. Those spending cuts included the phasing out of subsidies for energy and transport.

It also involved the abolition of many government departments, the reduction in the number of public servants employed, and some salary reductions for the surviving public servants. You can imagine how controversial that must have been. This year, Argentina is on track to achieve a budget surplus.

Second, reducing government expenditure has reduced dramatically the rate of inflation in Argentina. In 2023 the monthly inflation rate was around 25 per cent. By mid-2025 it was just over 2 per cent. Sure, that’s still too high but it’s a dramatic reduction in inflation. Reducing government expenditure has meant the central bank is no longer printing money.

The Milei government has also taken what it would like to call the chainsaw to government regulations. In one fell swoop it abolished some 300 government regulations. It liberalised labour laws making it easier not just to fire workers but to hire workers. It has begun to reform the tax system not just by reducing taxes but by simplifying the tax system, thereby making it more efficient. Added to that, it has privatised a number of government business enterprises.

Argentina has also liberalised its agricultural export industries and encouraged the extra extraction of cheap energy and minerals such as lithium.

What has all this done? It has led to an economic growth rate this year between 6 and 7 per cent. That, after years of economic decline, is a quite remarkable achievement. Investment is flowing back into Argentina, the government is now able to sell its bonds on the international markets. And living standards are starting to grow.

It’s true, Argentina still has a very high incidence of poverty, but what is interesting is this extraordinary experiment of economic liberalisation has actually led to a decline in the rate of poverty, not an increase in it. At the end of 2023, an estimated 57 per cent of Argentines lived in poverty. Today the poverty rate is still way too high at around 40 per cent but not only has it come down, it is continuing to decline.

Elon Musk holds a chainsaw alongside Argentine President Javier Milei during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

President Milei, after all of this radical reform and having smashed the Peronist economic model that has pretty much wrecked the country, is being rewarded with surprisingly high public approval ratings. So what’s the moral of this story? It’s that economic liberalism is at the heart of growth, prosperity and national success.

As Milei said at the Davos economic forum to the top end of the global business community: “Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money it’s because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general wellbeing.” He went on to say “do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself”.

On the whole, Australia has been very well governed over the past century and a quarter. But we’re changing. We’re becoming distinctly Peronist. We’re into state control, state regulation, trade union power, endless government expenditure, big deficits, growing public debt: we’re starting to make all the mistakes that have been made over the past few decades in Argentina.

Yes, President Milei is the most interesting political leader in the world today. We should think about his words early this year: “The state has been used by organised groups … to get privileges that not only are unfair but also damage growth: protected ‘businessaurus’ and trade union scumbags.” Exactly.