Andrew Bolt: Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers the voice of little authority

Australians are getting poorer but our Treasurer speaks with such certainty that many voters probably reckon he must really know his stuff. His National Press Club appearance, however, exposed how clueless he really is.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers speaks with such certainty that many voters probably reckon he must really know his stuff, even though they’re actually getting poorer.

But at his National Press Club appearance on Wednesday, Chalmers twice showed how clueless he really is.

First, he claimed the Albanese government’s clean energy schemes were driving down power prices.

“We are adding more cleaner and cheaper, more reliable sources of energy to the grid,” he burbled, and this was putting “downward pressure on prices”.

Nonsense. Wind and solar power are inherently unreliable. That’s why the more a country relies on renewable energy, the higher power prices tend to be. Which we see here.

But asked about our higher power prices, Chalmers told another falsehood. He blamed our coal-fired generators, not his green power:

“We know from … the experts that one of the reasons we have this upward pressure (on prices) is not the new parts of the system, not the cleaner, cheaper, more reliable energy that we are adding to the system, but the legacy parts of the system.”

At his National Press Club appearance on Wednesday, Chalmers twice showed how clueless he really is. Picture: Martin Ollman

Again, bull. In fact, the Australian Energy Regulator two weeks ago blamed the latest jump in electricity prices on “high demand, coal generator and network outages, and low solar and wind output”.

Yes, it also blamed “low solar and wind output”, because they’re not reliable. Last year actually saw a wind drought – less wind.

Chalmers’ embarrassment at the Press Club didn’t end there. He was also challenged on his decision last year to again hike taxes on tobacco, so a packet of 25 cigarettes costs about $50, with the government taking $34.

The poor can’t afford legal cigarettes, and Treasury warned Chalmers that making legal cigarettes so expensive would “strengthen incentives to trade in illicit tobacco”. That’s exactly what happened, costing the government billions. Five years ago the tobacco tax earned it $16.3bn. That fell last year to $11.5bn, and now to just $7.4bn.

Chalmers even encouraged organised crime gangs, now waging a war to control shops selling illegal tobacco for $15 a pack. Some 200 shops have been firebombed or smashed, most in Melbourne.

Asked about this, Chalmers refused to admit error, saying only he’d now spend $157m for a crackdown on tobacco crooks.

But that’s Chalmers’ whole budget strategy – handouts to cover Labor’s blunders.

Heaven help us.

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers the voice of little authority