ANDREW GREENE: Fracture between Albanese and Chalmers getting harder to hide after credit card ban debacle

Jim Chalmers insists he was not rolled by Anthony Albanese over a contentious credit card ban by the Tax Office, but the recent policy debacle is again highlighting what is now seen as an increasingly fractious relationship between the pair.

For months government MPs have been watching the strained dynamic between the Prime Minister and his ambitious Treasurer, particularly as the backlash to broken promises in the May budget have prompted repeated policy backdowns.

Some are even openly pondering whether it may be necessary for Mr Albanese to shift Dr Chalmers into a new portfolio as part of a broader ministerial reshuffle ahead of the next election due in 2028.

The latest apparent schism between the two powerful figures emerged on Tuesday night as the PM publicly gloated about his role in overruling the ATO’s plan to stop accepting credit card payments from December and pushing the move out by seven months.

In his address to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry dinner, Mr Albanese revealed he had stepped in to delay the move after receiving a text from the organisation’s chief executive Andrew McKellar.

“Andrew did text me last Thursday morning, and by Friday morning, we had an announcement and that was an example of a relationship that takes time to develop,” he told the business event.

“That trust, where you can have a discussion saying, ‘It’s in hand. I agree with what you are saying and I’ll get it done with the early announcement this time tomorrow’,” he added, implying only he enjoyed that level of confidence from the business sector.

As the Prime Minister was taking credit for overruling the ATO ban, Dr Chalmers was on the other side of town delivering his own speech imploring left-wing activists not to campaign against One Nation from a position of “smug moral superiority”.

By Wednesday morning the Treasurer was instead being questioned over whether he had again been “rolled” and “humiliated” by his boss.

“No, not at all,” Dr Chalmers insisted as he argued that he had worked closely with the PM last week to address the credit card problem when concerns first arose.

Then under questioning in Parliament by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, the PM began to walk back claims that he had personally intervened to delay an ATO ban, declaring the move was jointly coordinated with Dr Chalmers.

“The whole premise of it is completely wrong. The Treasurer and I had a discussion last week,” Mr Albanese told Question Time.

“We convened the expenditure review committee, and we unanimously, right across the leadership of the government, agreed that the decision by the ATO to have a limited period of pause on the ban that had been imposed”.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson has gleefully leapt on the latest policy reversal to highlight other recent instances where he claims the Prime Minister has “humiliated his Treasurer by forcing a backdown”.

He points to policy changes forced by Mr Albanese on Dr Chalmers since the May Budget involving the application of Capital Gains Tax hike on small business, the widows’ tax, the death tax and the trusts tax.

Labor figures tell The Nightly that they believe the relationship between the Prime Minister and Treasurer continues to be cooperative but there remains a level of mistrust between them that stretches back to the days of the Rudd government.

When Kevin Rudd was removed by Julia Gillard in 2010 Dr Chalmers was chief of staff to then treasurer Wayne Swan who then became deputy leader, while Mr Albanese stuck with the former Prime Minister.

Since Labor won office in 2022 Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers have worked closely together but there is widespread acknowledgement inside government that the Treasurer still hopes to one day take over the Prime Minister’s job.

After Labor’s crushing election victory in 2025, Andrew Charlton, another ambitious former staff member from the Rudd era, was appointed by the Prime Minister to become Cabinet Secretary in a move seen as keeping a check on Dr Chalmers.

“Appointing Charlton as Cabinet Secretary means he is part of all the important meetings such as expenditure review committee and it’s a deliberate move by the PM to appoint someone who also aspires to being Treasurer to that role,” one Labor MP says.

In recent Australian political history, tensions between Prime Ministers and their ambitious Treasurers are not unusual, but as the government struggles to turn around poor polling any suggestion of a rift between the two senior figures will not help.