Jim Chalmers is dreaming of big economic reform. But is history – or even Albanese – on his side?
Are Australians ready to have a mature conversation about the difficult reforms needed to underpin our future prosperity?
Jim Chalmers reckons we are.
The treasurer says there is a hunger in Australia for bold and ambitious reform and the only thing standing between us and policy nirvana is a national consensus to get it done.
Labor has a 'responsibility' to future generations to put in place the settings to drive the next era of prosperity, Chalmers says. And the government is ready to go well beyond what they took to voters in May.
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'We're trying to say we have a big, ambitious agenda, and we're going to roll that out as we said we would. But we're going to test the country's appetite for more than that,' he told the National Press Club on Tuesday.
Reform succeeds when you can bring people with you, Chalmers said. 'It requires courage but it requires consensus as well.'
Courage and consensus – two things sorely lacking in political life for … decades?
Chalmers entreats attendees at the upcoming three-day reform roundtable in August to leave their narrow interests at the door and consider the national interest instead.
It will be a big ask.
Chalmers is right to call out those who make loud demands for reform but shoot down every single step in that direction.
'Too often, the loudest calls for economic reform in the abstract come from the noisiest opponents of actual reform in the specific,' he said on Tuesday.
Look no further than the confected outrage in some media outlets of the $3m super tax.
Chalmers is also trying to dictate how journalists interrogate the government.
He claims the 'rule-in rule-out game' that the media play is 'cancerous' to reform.
If you force the government to 'rule out' changes to the GST, for example, then that instantly rules out some major options for holistic tax reform that could leave most Australians better off.
Chalmers is not wrong but he is asking for trust – and that needs to go both ways.
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Labor has shown it prefers to keep the fourth estate at arm's length, treating journalists as a problem to be managed and, where possible, manipulated.
Good luck being allowed to talk to somebody in the bureaucracy to help you better understand an issue, or get some time to talk with a policy adviser.
That might be inside baseball but there's a more obvious question mark hanging over Chalmers' vision.
Is there really the claimed appetite for political risk around the cabinet table, starting with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese?
Meaningful reform involves winners and losers, as Chalmers repeatedly noted.
But a glance at any budgets over recent years suggests policies are carefully designed not to create any losers, unless they are small groups such as wealthy Aussies or multinational firms.
Finally, Chalmers was cagey about whether members of the opposition would be invited to take part in August's talkfest.
Which begs a perhaps even more fundamental question: can major economic reform, particularly in heavily contested areas such as tax, happen without bipartisan support?
History suggests not.
Patrick Commins is economics editor for Guardian Australia
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