Chalmers delivers the weakest fiscal strategy of recent times

I slept through the 2022-23 budget Mark II speech – the Treasurer having taken to the dispatch box at 4:30am local time here in Washington. After waking a couple of hours later and reading through the budget papers, it became clear to me that Jim Chalmers slept through the writing of them, too.

“That’s a bit mean!” – you may be thinking. But the PR blitzkrieg the government has waged before and since the budget, and the cuddly, uncritical reception it’s received in some quarters, calls for a big dose of scepticism – indeed, cynicism – among objective observers.