This is very strange politics. Every day, Chicken Chalmers commentates his own policy failures like he is an observer not a player in the game:
Grocery prices will climb in the wake of the Victorian floods, intensifying cost-of-living pressures as Treasurer Jim Chalmers warns that the impact of this latest natural disaster on the federal budget will be substantial.
The total cost to the economy will not be known until after the waters have receded, but a leading economist predicts inflation could surpass a 32-year high of 8 per cent by the end of the year.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Monday said the government would have to factor in the cost of the rebuilding efforts and disaster recovery payments, as well as the broader economic disruption.
“Obviously, when you’re talking about absolutely prime agricultural land, making some of the biggest contributions to our grocery aisles, there will be an impact, and it will be a substantial impact I fear,” he said on Monday.
“I think Australians do need to brace for a cost-of-living impact from these floods. These are likely to push up the cost of living when Australians are already under the pump.”
And what are you going to do about it, Chicken? Nothing.
I agree with Jennifer Hewett on nothing. But she is right about this:
Australian politics is becoming skilled in the art of national conversation about the need for national conversations. From energy to taxation to social spending priorities, political and community leaders solemnly agree on why these conversations must be had in order to confront various economic challenges and contradictions. But beyond generalities, there’s little agreement on what and how and when to deliver everything that is supposed to be achieved.
Sadly, politics is a two-horse race, and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor is about as convincing as a lamp post, so Chalmers has free air to commentate his inaction ad nauseum.
What is behind the badgery? I put it to you that it has nothing whatsoever to do with any national conversation about public interest policy.
Rather, it is a slow-motion backflip on every promise that got the government elected: fixing the cost of living, lifting wages and rebooting manufacturing, which are all being swiftly replaced by smashed living standards and real wages, and the devastation of industry:
Chicken Chalmers is daily laying out his excuse for failing at everything.
At some point, Australians are simply going to recognise how much poorer the Chicken is making them and find his incessant utterances about his own failure pathetic.
Perhaps today. ANZ’s weekly consumer confidence update. Recall that this is after the RBA’s “pivot”:
How do you spell “energy shock”:
Chicken Chalmers into the pit:
It’s going to get a lot worse as Chicken Chalmers talks everything down while doing nothing about it.
