Anyone paying even half attention knows it – Jim Chalmers is completely out of his depth, and Australians are paying for it.
Under his watch, Australia has spent the better part of four years in a per-capita recession.
Disposable incomes have experienced the largest drop of developed economies.
Government spending has hit records not seen outside of wartime or a global pandemic.
Inflation, which the government of which he is a senior member, takes zero responsibility for, was resurrected from the grave by the very policies he championed.
These are not debatable points. These are the numbers.
But Chalmers does not deal in numbers. He deals in vibes, in ideological waffle, in op-eds about ‘values-based capitalism’ that read like a first-year philosophy student discovered economics Twitter.
He has no authority, no understanding, and frankly no idea.
He is the archetypal central planner who genuinely believes that government policy can control the sun, the moon, and the tides. And when reality hands him evidence to the contrary, he does what all true believers do – he doubles down. More spending. More intervention. More of the exact policies that caused the mess in the first place.
If there were a Mount Rushmore of catastrophic Australian Treasurers, Chalmers would not merely make the cut. He would be chiselled in at the top, looming over Swan, Frydenberg, and Morrison like some kind of monument to economic incompetence.
That is a genuinely crowded field of mediocrity he has managed to lap.
Which brings us to the real question, the one nobody seems willing to ask out loud: Why does Anthony Albanese keep this man in the job? There are portfolios far better suited to whatever it is Chalmers actually brings to the table. Local government. Gender equality. Arts funding.
Something with low stakes and generous photo opportunities. Anything that keeps him away from the levers of the national economy.
At some point, the Labor caucus will do the arithmetic that their Treasurer apparently cannot. Chalmers is not a political asset heading into the next election. He is a liability with a good haircut and a knack for alliteration.
The only remaining question is how much damage he gets to do before someone in government finally says it out loud – enough is enough.
