Back in 2022 when Labor won the federal election with a paltry 32 per cent of the primary vote, our columnist Judith Sloan warned us all to ‘assume the brace position’. She couldn’t have been more prescient. This week Australia, under the grinning bonhomie of Treasurer Jim Chalmers, abandoned all claims to sound economic stewardship with a spendthrift, lazy and irresponsible Budget, where hypocrisy and counter-productive measures are the order of the day,
At the same time as the Reserve Bank is warning about inflation, and that interest rates may yet have to rise again, Labor decides to pour petrol literally onto the fire with monumental subsidies and spending.
Worse, as energy costs are soaring, largely thanks to Labor’s preposterous net zero/renewables policies and anti-fossil fuels agenda, Mr Chalmers has decided to tip vast sums of taxpayer money into Labor’s fantasy climate projects. Watch $14 billion get flushed down the green hydrogen gurgler.
Meanwhile, because due to Labor’s own policies household electricity bills are soaring, Mr Chalmers comes up with the novel idea of handing out every household in the country – from Malcolm Turnbull’s harbourside mansion to Mike Cannon-Brookes triple multi-million dollar houses in Mittagong – a $300 rebate. Cynics have noted that this amount just exceeds the much-lampooned $275-per-household-per-year energy cut promised by Labor in opposition; an amount based on the fraudulent claim that ‘renewables are the cheapest form of electricity’. (Cue laughter).
But wait, there’s more. Thanks to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Labor hopes to toughen our environmental ‘investment approval’ regulations through the insidious Nature Positive plan which will have serious mining and agricultural investors heading for the hills, but not, alas, any hills on this continent.
As Coalition Senator Matt Canavan notes, ‘Labor is adding $24 billion of new net spending. You don’t cut inflation by increasing government spending.’
Yet that is precisely what Mr Chalmers thinks he is doing. He and the government then have the chutzpah to argue the RBA forecasts are not to be believed. As numerous commentators have pointed out, it is now a race to call an election before either interest rates or inflation rise further.
Writing in the Australian Financial Review, Steven Hamilton suggests RBA Governor Michele Bullock may well ‘choke on her cornflakes’over ‘the most irresponsible, reckless Budget in recent memory’. And he is by no means alone. An army of financial commentators have finally had enough of pretending that Jim Chalmers actually knows what he is doing. After all, this is the individual who claimed in his first foray into print after becoming Treasurer that he was going to ‘reinvent capitalism’. Perhaps he has. But certainly not for the better.
Speaking toThe Spectator Australia, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor believes the game is now up for Labor. ‘Nothing in this Budget will fix the sorry fact that all Australians are now poorer under Labor. All the Budget does is risk higher inflation and higher interest rates for a longer period of time.’ Mr Taylor goes on to point out that the only tool in Labor’s arsenal is bigger government, and bigger government always spells disaster. Indeed, Mr Albanese and Mr Chalmers have managed to create a staggering 36,000 new Canberra-based bureaucrat positions in this woeful Budget. This is an obscenity. Struggling Australian businesses, small and large, can now look forward to ever more onerous red, green and black tape to destroy productivity, profits and business feasibility.
Sadly, it is likely that this government will end not with a whimper but with a very loud economic bang.
Whether before or after we go to the polls remains to be seen.
Australia’s shame
The recent vote at the United Nations in which Australia – thanks to Mr Albanese and Ms Wong – broke decades of bi-partisan agreement and abandoned Israel in favour of a Palestinian ‘state’, was a dark day for this nation. Instead of either voting against the resolution, as did the United States, Argentina and even Papua New Guinea (well done!), or abstaining, as did Britain, Canada and many European nations, our Labor government chose to align this nation with the likes of Iran, Russia, China and the many Jew-hating nations of the world.
We can only hope that the Jews of Australia judge Labor (and their fellow-travellers the Teals and the Greens) harshly at the forthcoming federal election.
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.