EDITORIAL: Inflation spin doing Labor no favours
EDITORIAL: The growing problem for the Albanese Government is people just don’t buy what it is selling.
The Albanese Government is clearly having trouble coming to terms with the reality it faces around inflation and interest rates.
Specifically, acknowledging the contribution its policies, in particular its profligate spending, have made.
What other conclusion could we draw from the comments of Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs, Julian Hill.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.On Monday Mr Hill was still pushing the line that the rise in inflation was primarily the fault of the oil price spike due to the war in Iran.
“The war in the Middle East is the biggest single determinant of the price of fuel which we know cascades. If diesel is high, transport, logistics and production are the pressures we are grappling with,” Mr Hill said.
“We can’t accept the, frankly, false thesis being pushed by some parts of the political spectrum, simple solutions, that somehow it is spending, but it is not. That’s the truth,” he said.
False thesis? Really?
Here is what Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock opened her remarks to the media with after the RBA last week hit home loan borrowers again by taking the cash rate to a 15-year high of 4.6 per cent.
“Inflation is too high and has been driven by domestic capacity pressures. The inflation impulse from the Middle East conflict is in addition to this.”
Ms Bullock also made it clear she saw the nation’s dire productivity performance as a big problem.
Productivity, she said, “is doing nothing”.
Poor productivity imposes limits on the amount the economy can grow — described at times as a “speed limit” — without driving inflation up.
In taking his shot at the RBA governor, Mr Hill was following the approach of Treasurer Jim Chalmers last week — that is, it is about the Iran war.
Blame Donald Trump, not me, was the flavour of it.
Dr Chalmers was in deflect mode again on Monday, when he told a conference in Japan that massive AI data centre investment was to blame for an expected soaring of Australian Government debt interest payments.
The growing problem for the Albanese Government is people just don’t buy what it is selling.
That’s partly fallout from shamelessly breaking promises, as the Government did by changing negative gearing and capital gains tax rules after repeatedly ruling it out.
The result for Labor in the opinion polls is continuing to be brutal.
The latest RedBridge Group poll released on Monday had One Nation ahead on 29 per cent, with Labor on 28 per cent.
The numbers have been broadly stable for some months now.
The news is similarly troubling for Dr Chalmers and his boss Anthony Albanese, whose personal approval ratings have dived.
Mr Albanese’s net favourability rating was minus 27 per cent, his lowest ever, and Dr Chalmers came in at minus 23 per cent, also his worst.
Another worry for Labor was that the poll found the issue of economic management was of growing concern, and the Coalition was the preferred economic manager.
When the economy becomes an issue of major concern, the danger grows for any government.
