Opinion: Welcome to the job, treasurer. Rather you than me | 1RossGittins
Very occasionally, some poor misguided letter-writer suggests to my boss that I’d make a better treasurer than the incumbent. I’m flattered, of course, but it’s never been a job I’ve lusted after. Nor do I delude myself I’d be much good at it. And that goes double for the present incumbent, Jim Chalmers.When, within days of taking up the job, Chalmers declared the budget situation was “dire”, people thought he was just softening us up.
It was a problem they’d think about when and if they were re-elected. Meanwhile, nothing mattered more that avoiding doing anything that could cost them votes.All this we knew before the election. What was less obvious were the many stopgap measures they’d used to hold back the growth in government spending, building up a dam that would inevitably burst.
The second element of Chalmers’ budget problem is that, as part of its small-target strategy for finally winning an election, Labor promised never to do anything anyone anywhere would ever dislike. In practice, making cuts sufficient to fill the gap is politically impossible. It’s true the government is busy reviewing all their predecessor’s spending, looking for waste and extravagance. But all that’s likely to achieve is to make room for their own new spending promises.
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