Jim Chalmers has warned left-wing activists not to campaign against One Nation from a position of “smug moral superiority”, declaring his budget of tax hikes was needed to stem the voter drift to the “far right” as it showed Labor was upending the status quo.
Declaring his lifetime in the battler suburb of Logan meant he “carried with me” a “genuine respect and understanding”, the Treasurer said One Nation supporters were “mourning a loss of control” and treated “feelings … as real as facts” but counselled that Labor “shouldn’t turn on them”.
“All of this is then fed and fuelled, monetised, politicised, and catastrophised by algorithmic rage bait,” Dr Chalmers said in a speech on Tuesday night.
“We have all the facts to push back on this, but facts don’t beat feelings. Feelings are as real as facts.”
Dr Chalmers said the Reserve Bank and Treasury expected inflation to be in target band and for interest rates to be coming down within 12 months, but warned that “so much of the next year will be hostage to decisions taken in Washington, on Wall Street, in Tehran”.
One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson speaking at a business leaders’ summit in Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
The Treasurer’s speech to the left-wing Australia Institute came a day after Anthony Albanese told a room full of business leaders that it was important for Australia’s international reputation to have a government that “says what it’s going to do”.
The Prime Minister’s previously unreported comments made on Monday night were delivered just months after his government stunned the investor community by delivering a budget full of broken promises on tax.
Speaking at an event hosted by Australian Industry Group on Monday night, Mr Albanese talked up Australia being an attractive destination for investment by noting Britain had had five prime ministers since Labor was elected in 2022.
“It matters: stability and order in a government that says what it’s going to do and then tries to work through what are very difficult times,” Mr Albanese said, in a speech that was not released by his office.
He also flagged there would be further consultation with business on the government’s tax reforms.
“The truth is that the tax system did need reform,” he said.
“We’ll continue to engage with the business community about that, but at the same time, we have done a range of measures to try to engage in that constructive way.”
In his Bernie Fraser Oration hosted by the Australia Institute, Dr Chalmers said he expected the One Nation vote to remain elevated for an extended period.
“Same goes for consumer confidence,” the Treasurer said.
Anthony Albanese assured business leaders the government would consult on tax reforms while emphasizing the need for policy stability. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Dr Chalmers said the far-right strategy was “to divide people and it’s working”, declaring the goal of that movement was to talk down the economy “so that their endless negativity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy”.
“Their core message is often clear and sometimes very appealing: let’s just go back to a more nostalgic version of the world we remember,” he said.
“The past will always feel safe and familiar and desirable because by definition we understand it better than we understand the future. That’s normal. That’s human.”
Dr Chalmers said the role of progressives was neither to scold, mock, cancel nor talk down to Australians finding comfort in One Nation’s message.
Instead, progressives needed to persuade people that it was not possible to return to the past and that “trying via the actual policies of the far right will harm them”.
“The other half of our mission is this: to persuade working people that the path we advocate, the path we haven’t walked before is actually the safer, more secure and more prosperous path for them and their loved ones,” Dr Chalmers said.
“And you do that by starting not from a place of smug moral superiority – but from a place of genuine respect and understanding that I’ve carried with me around my local community in Queensland and not just for the 13 years I’ve represented it, but over a lifetime living there.”
Dr Chalmers said the government’s reforms on negative gearing, capital gains and trusts were part of Labor “acting on people’s real frustrations versus opposition parties who just want to prey on them”.
“Perhaps a key mistake made by parties of the left is that in their defence of democracy and institutions they’ve also inadvertently become the party of the status quo,” Dr Chalmers said.
“We are not making that mistake; we are reforming the status quo in tax and housing and in other ways, in the interests of working people.
“Hoping the far right goes away or implodes again is not actually a strategy. But acknowledging and acting on the pressures people are under, delivering better and more tangible outcomes for them, and reforming the status quo in their interests is, and that’s our approach.”
Jim Chalmers defended new taxes on trusts and housing reforms as essential to address economic frustration. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
With the government to introduce legislation to increase taxes on trusts into parliament on Wednesday, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said on Tuesday night the proposal “sends the wrong message”.
“We urge all members of parliament to examine this legislation carefully and to listen to the views of those small businesses who will be affected – small and medium-sized home builders, family pharmacies, newsagents, small retailers, restaurants, and cafes,” Mr McKellar said.
“Tax policy should encourage enterprise, reward investment and reinforce Australia’s reputation as an attractive and dependable place to do business.”
On the economy, Dr Chalmers said Treasury and the RBA did not expect “things to get a lot better in the next 12 weeks but they do expect things to get a bit better over the next 12 months”.
He said in 12 months it was expected that inflation would be inside the RBA’s 2 to 3 per cent target band, unemployment would be under 5 per cent and real wages growth would return.
“These difficult times test our people and they test their governments,” Dr Chalmers said.
“But they’re also a test of whether a country’s character falls to the level of its critics, whether we turn on each other, or reach for the most comforting culture war, or whether we are capable of doing the harder thing, to change and adapt and reform and prosper together through uncertainty.
“I’m confident but not complacent that Australians will choose the second course.”
Angus Taylor said the first task of a Coalition government would be to restore confidence for business, declaring the community increasingly understands the problems caused by high levels of public spending.
“If we don’t get people investing and growing and taking risk and employing again, then we don’t have our country anymore,” the Opposition Leader said at the ACCI event.
With his migration plan coming under criticism from business, Mr Taylor said social licence for Australia’s immigration program was “well on the way to being lost”.
Mr Taylor said there would be “nothing business friendly if we lose the social licence for good immigration in this country”.
“That’s on all of us,” Mr Taylor told business figures.
