Jim Chalmers will go down as one of the worst treasurers that Australia has ever had, up there with Jim Cairns. Ten quarters of negative per capita GDP growth guarantees that description.

But it’s simply not possible to place the Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher, on any ranking. She should be marked DNQ. Her incompetence is extreme; her ignorance is boundless; her indifference is concerning.  To even call her the Finance Minister is to stretch the meaning of that title.

The country would be better off if she just stayed at home, which would be in keeping with her preference for working from home for all public servants, without the working bit. After all, she is just the minister for the federal public service, and her real job is to ensure its continued growth and further enhance the many perquisites for these hard-working souls.

As for the job of ensuring that taxpayers receive value for money from government spending, Katy simply doesn’t get it.  Her motto is: why spend less when you can spend more. Her lack of ability is on full display at Senate Estimates where she either fails to answer questions or stumbles so badly that she must rely on the senior public servant sitting next to her.

Her claim that the Labor government had ‘saved’ $114 billion during its time in office was so implausible that she was forced to ask her minder whether that was a gross or net figure. The truth is that Labor has saved nothing given the rising levels of government debt but has simply ‘reprioritised’ spending – don’t you just hate that term?

And didn’t you love her response to the question from leader of the Nats, Matt Canavan, about productivity initiatives in the recent budget?  She referred to a ‘glossy’ that was released along with other cheat sheets at budget time. That was her answer. The productivity challenge, which is dire, could be solved by a ‘glossy’ which, it would seem, she hadn’t read.

Senate Estimates reveal so many examples of the utter waste of government spending that it’s easy to feel depressed. Evidently, we have an Ambassador for First Nations People. The role is currently filled by Mr Mohamed who earns around $400,000 a year. He is particularly fond of international travel. He has a ten-person office with a four-year budget allocation of nearly $14 million.

But what does an Ambassador for First Nations People do? Evidently, it has something to do with a First Nations approach to foreign policy, although I’m none the wiser for typing those words. But to assist in this task, a contract was awarded to an ‘inner Sydney-based consultancy’ – I’m thinking Surry Hills or Newtown – to the value of $266,000 to help ‘create a strategy for a First Nations approach to foreign policy’.

Then there is the $20-million increase in funding for the Office of the Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarettes Commissioner. Is this some sort of joke? Let’s face it, the battle against illicit tobacco has essentially been lost, with at least 80 per cent of the market for tobacco products coming from illicit sources. With the price gap between an illicit product and an excisable one around the $30 mark, smokers are not mugs. But this commissioner lives in cloud-cuckoo-land by claiming that government efforts to clamp down on illicit tobacco are working. Yeah right, honey. The billions in lost tobacco excise revenue pile up and the rate of smoking in the population increases, including among the young’uns. But with a straight face, the commissioner tells us that her office is having an impact.

Then there’s the scarily titled Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA); the Soviets couldn’t have done any better. Apart from imposing more compliance burdens on businesses, it’s not clear what this interfering organisation has ever achieved.

The current annual cost of running this outfit is around $13 million and the chief executive earns a package of around $330 large. (Tony Abbott, when prime minister, was keen to get rid of this useless agency, but didn’t get around to it.) In its most recent annual report, it was revealed that a mere 50 per cent of employers rated their experience of reporting as ‘good, very good or excellent’. In other words, 50 per cent rated their experience as ‘bad, very bad or appalling’. (OK, I made up that last adjective.)

And don’t you just love this fact: even though one of the main functions of the WGEA is ‘to promote and improve gender equality in Australian workplaces’, nearly three quarters of the staff down at the WGEA are women. Oops. But it’s fine because the annual report includes Australian Public Service net zero 2030 emissions reporting.

Here’s something that is interesting: the Workplace Gender Equality Act defines a woman as ‘a member of the female sex irrespective of age’. It’s just a pity that the Sex Discrimination Act could not have been as clear.

If we are talking about a complete waste of money, time and effort, you only need to watch the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Anna Cody, perform handstands trying to explain how discrimination for potential pregnancy could apply to a biological male claiming to be woman even if that person couldn’t become pregnant. Thank you, Julia, for that one. Is it any wonder that ordinary folk begin to froth at the mouth over such illogical nonsense and the accompanying waste of money?

Did I also mention that there is the Office for Women in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the job of which is to provide ‘quality gender advice and delivering effective policies and programs for the Minister for Women and the Prime Minister’.And then there is something called the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety.

How these various agencies don’t trip over each other is anyone’s guess. (They do, you say, and what a waste.) But this government just loves being seen to be doing something when any sort of problem arises, even if the problem is not amenable to government intervention. There is currently someone called the Fuel Supply Taskforce Coordinator. At a cool quarter-of-a-million dollars each quarter, it’s a bargain apart from the fact that this is precisely the sort of task – to ensure an adequate supply of liquid fuel in the context of the conflict in the Middle East – that well-paid bureaucrats should be undertaking.

And don’t get me onto the wasteful spending of the complicated tapestry of government climate bodies. Let’s face it, we would all be better off without the Climate Change Authority (CCA) that provides ‘expert advice to the Australian government and engages with the community to guide Australia towards a prosperous, resilient and decarbonised future’. Oh, please: spare us all.

The annual cost of running the CCA is around $14 million and its chief executive – who happens to be a man – is on a cool $425 large, total package. But then there is the Australian Energy Regulator, the Australian Energy Market Commission, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Energy Security Board, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the Climate Energy Finance Corporation and the list goes on.

As ordinary folk struggle to meet their daily expenses, it’s not surprising that there is widespread disgust about growing government waste.