Whoops! Labor’s shadow treasurer credits Liberals with low unemployment

A meme shared by would-be Labor treasurer Jim Chalmers contained a glaring and amusing error, prompting a pile-on from Coalition MPs.

Would-be Labor treasurer Jim Chalmers tripped over his own numbers Tuesday when he – or his social media team – tweeted out figures seeming to give the Coalition credit for lower unemployment numbers, before hastily deleting the post.

Around mid-day, Mr Chalmers’s Twitter account posted a meme which read, “Compare the pair: average unemployment.”

The post went on to say that under Labor, unemployment was 5.7 per cent while it has averaged 5.1 per cent.

Jim Chalmers’ social media team dropped the ball on Tuesday.

Coalition Twitter accounts made a great deal of sport of the post on social media before it was eventually deleted.

Employment Minister Stuart Robert wrote, “Labor can’t even get their tweets right … how can Australians trust them to do a budget?”, while Senator James McGrath wrote that it was “a rare example of Labor’s Jim Chalmers telling the truth.”

Compounding the shadow treasurer’s embarrassment, the post occurred the same day he addressed the National Press Club to deliver his post-Budget reply, where he managed to get his figures straight.

One government source said that while the numbers on Chalmers’ original tweet indeed should have been the other way around, “it is pretty misleading and complete spin.”

“Why, you might ask? Because we inherited 5.7 per cent unemployment from them and got it down to four per cent today.”

Originally published as Whoops! Labor’s shadow treasurer credits Liberals with low unemployment