There used to be a show on the television called The Weakest Link. It was presented by a fierce, unpleasant woman who showed real delight in rejecting the contestants who underperformed relative to the group. Mean girls were ideal candidates for the position of host.

I was thinking of this the other day when considering the Treasurer’s unseemly attack on former governor of the Reserve Bank, Phil Lowe – more of this below. The conclusion that is now emerging is that it’s The Jimbo & Katy Show that is the government’s weakest link. The newly installed leader of the opposition, Angus Taylor, and his team should surely exploit this emerging weakness.

Of course, saying that Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher, is part of the weakest link team is so obvious that it’s almost unnecessary to justify her inclusion. A former social worker, she knows about as much about public finances and budgets as most ten-year-olds – absolutely nothing, in other words.

She continues to make a complete goose of herself. She declared in the Senate that the Howard government was the highest-spending government on record, much higher than the current Albanese government. Had she been smoking something?

A very quick look at the records would have told her that this is complete nonsense. Gosh, her numerous staffers could also have told her this, assuming that they are mainly over the age of 10. When the Howard government came to office, government payments were 25 per cent of GDP; when it was voted out in 2007, the percentage was 23 per cent.

Sadly, for Katy, she was forced to admit her mistake and fess up that she had misspoken. She was talking about the Morrison government. But even then, she omitted the fact that the bumper spending only occurred during the Covid period and with the explicit support of Labor. In fact, Labor had argued for even higher spending – think here the extension of JobKeeper and the three large ones to be handed out to everyone having a vaccine.

Apart from the fact that she is completely clueless in her portfolio, there is another reason why Gallagher really should never have been selected to be Finance Minister. As Senator for the Australian Capital Territory, she is clearly conflicted when it comes to ensuring the rightsizing of the public service.

Under the Albanese government, the number of public servants has grown by more than 20 per cent. But here’s a really important point – nearly 30,000 of these public servants are essentially unfunded as they are not included in any forward estimates in the budget. Katy is the one who has overseen this exercise in incompetence.

Either the government gets a wriggle on reducing the size of the public service by this amount – attrition would achieve quite a lot – or there will have to be a revision in the budget figures, leading in turn to higher forecast deficits.

(Once upon a time not so long ago, a secretary of the Department of Health was honest enough to tell an audience that he didn’t really know what most of the people in his department did. After all, hospitals or other health care agencies are not run by Canberra. But the fact is the Department of Health employs around 7,500 permanent public servants.)

While Katy may not have the smarts to be an effective finance minister, she does excel in the role of mean girl. This was on show when then Senator Linda Reynolds was harassed and attacked by Katy, Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally, accusing her – entirely falsely – of covering up the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins. (Their behaviour towards Labor colleague, Kimberley Kitching, was equally unforgivable.)

Has she ever apologised to Reynolds?  Has she ever admitted that she made a grave mistake in behaving the way she did? Not on your nelly.

While Jimbo has always had the gift of the gab and has delighted in responding to polite criticism, his recent performances have demonstrated a clear fraying at the edges. His constant comparisons with outcomes under the former Coalition government are looking decidedly stale and concocted. And his obvious frustrations with key figures – inflation, real wages, GDP growth, productivity – only undermine his credibility as an economic treasurer. Telling everyone you are a responsible economic manager doesn’t make you one, Jim.

As gross government debt approaches the trillion-dollar mark, the pressure is really beginning to build. Remember when Jimbo gave former treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, a hard time for forecasting debt of a trillion dollars. Well, Jimbo, you will have achieved it.

Last week, he decided to give a mild-mannered former Reserve Bank governor a serve for pointing out the obvious proposition that excess government spending is adding to inflationary pressures.

In Lowe’s words: ‘I hope the government turns out to be more ambitious… because if productivity growth remains weak, the supply capacity of the economy will remain weak…. The government wants to keep spending and wants to keep offering people handouts which adds to demand, which in the normal course of events would be fine.  But if the supply is not growing, you can’t do it and you try to do it then interest rates have to go up.’

But Jim was not having a bar of it. He referred to the fact that Lowe had not been reappointed for another term as governor by the Labor government and that he was obviously bitter. Get a grip, Jim. Former RBA governors have always commented on the state of the economy – there’s no conspiracy there, mate.

The point here is that the pressure is clearly building on the Treasurer and he is beginning to look rattled, particularly with the budget coming up in May. He will be working on some of the tamer journalists to make sure that the term ‘reform’ is mentioned on multiple occasions to describe the cash grab that will be an inevitable part of the annual fiscal confab.

It will be an opportunity for Angus Taylor and shadow treasurer Tim Wilson to spruik an alternative approach. A pro-growth set of policies is likely to have real appeal compared with an arbitrary set of new and higher taxes. It’s well known that countries don’t tax their way to prosperity, so this should be pointed out.

The bottom line is that the several years of falling living standards we have experienced is being felt across the community. Handouts and cost of living measures may offset the angst to a degree, but a mood of despair and pessimism is clear in the measures of consumer sentiment.

If Jim and Katy had been contestants in The Weakest Link, Katy would have been one of the first to be eliminated. Jim would have battled on, swapping barbs with the callous host in the hope of lasting to the end.  But it’s clear that his time is now up and even some of his colleagues are noticing.