ANDREW CARSWELL: Tony Burke’s elevation has Jim Chalmers looking over his shoulder and firing up at last

All it took for Treasurer Jim Chalmers to find his voice again was the elevation of a factional rival.

Having ducked and weaved his way out of the spotlight since handing down his second Budget, since making a monumental gamble with the Government’s books over inflation’s rather unpredictable course, Jim could no longer sit on the sidelines and bide his time; waiting indulgently for his captain to wreck his boat on the rocks before he put his hand up.

Not now that Tony Burke has barged his way into future leadership contention.

When Burke got the tap on the shoulder from the Prime Minister to claw the Government out of a hole of its own digging — its poor performance on immigration and border security — Jim’s future flashed before his eyes.

Having delivered the Government a dirty win on industrial relations by legislating the union movement’s entire wish list, making immigration and border security disappear off the Government’s list of problem areas would shift Burke ever closer to heir apparent status.

Hence the alarm bells in Jim’s head.

With the ambitious Queenslander dragging himself back into the ring, he was suddenly throwing roundhouse punches like a man possessed. Peter Dutton copped a few low blows. The Reserve Bank caught one flush on the nose.

Look at me. I’ve still got it!

His punches at Dutton were rash and ill-judged. Part desperation at his own slide in relevance within his party, part exasperation at the fact the Opposition Leader was somehow within striking distance of a first-term government. Labor types cannot for the life of them understand why Australians would even contemplate Dutton. It baffles them. Messes with their minds.

This says something profound about their view of real Australia and their contempt for ordinary folk and their values and virtues.

The free-flowing Dutton character assessments also show that a political misjudgment is being made. The Opposition Leader’s approval ratings aren’t exactly sitting on a high perch. There is not a whole lot of room to move. And yet despite this, his Coalition is level with Labor in the polls.

But more importantly, it is awfully hard for governments that are on the nose to make a compelling case about the character of an opposition leader without losing skin. Voters hate it when underperforming governments take the daily bazooka to the opposition. Especially during times of financial hardship and social upheaval.

It might work in opposition, as Albanese proved. But if you’re the actual boss man, it’s probably time to find another schtick. You’re the Government. The other mob isn’t.

Jim’s rage against the RBA machine is also instructive to how the Treasurer views his personal standing inside Labor. He’s worried that his status as the next-most-likely has been compromised. He’s anxious that factional rivals from the powerful right have already stolen the march on him. Friendless in caucus he is not. But he’s hardly popular.

Suggesting the RBA was “smashing the economy” by keeping interest rates high is ultimately an exercise in blame-shifting, while having the added bonus of showing his Labor colleagues that he isn’t afraid to make an enemy out of the RBA to stave off a revolt from the public.

That he isn’t afraid to drop his fiscal purity and get all down and dirty as a populist. Who would’ve thought Jim would follow Donald Trump’s lead in slaying our central bankers? Goading them.

Of course, timing is everything. Tomorrow’s national accounts may end up looking like a Pro Hart masterpiece. Jim’s first negative quarter of economic growth? Perhaps. If it is positive, we may still need additional proof of life to determine the economy actually has a pulse. Because it doesn’t feel rosy out there.

The spray is also a clever diversion from the realisation that underlying inflation is still way too high for the RBA to consider a rate cut. When it comes to inflation’s interaction with monetary policy, the Treasurer conveniently gets confused between headline and underlying inflation, giving him the room to take aim at the RBA when he should really be pointing the weapon at himself.

In the space of a week, Jim has claimed credit for bringing down headline inflation with his energy bill subsidies, and taken the baseball bat to the RBA for not responding in kind by lowering interest rates, without daring to admit the two aren’t connected.

Things that contribute to lowering headline inflation? Jim’s energy bill subsidies.

Things the RBA ignores in its deliberations on interest rates? Headline inflation.

Things the RBA does look at in its deliberations on interest rates? Increased government spending.

This is the frustration of being Jim Chalmers.

He knows he is the Government’s best communicator. And he is. He knows he is the best hope of generational change in the Labor Party. And he is.

But he also knows if he fails to land Australia’s dismount from this crippling episode of high inflation and low growth, his leadership ambitions are in tatters.

Tony Burke won’t mind if he doesn’t.

Andrew Carswell was a former strategist with the Morrison government.