Grattan on Friday: Can Jim Chalmers become a reforming treasurer?

By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Jim Chalmers’ long term ambition is similar to that of most treasurers. He wants to be prime minister. More immediately, he aspires to be a reformer, which has become harder in today’s electorate, with its low tolerance for pain.

Chalmers likes to talk about having “conversations” on economic matters with the public. On Tuesday – when he was playing down some good news about the $50 billion windfall in the budget outcome for 2021-22 – he spoke of the need for a “national conversation” about how we pay for all the expensive programs people want.

He’d been asked about Reserve…

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