Jim Chalmers warns Labor must do more than ‘jag a single term’

Jim Chalmers has warned Labor has too much work to do to merely “jag a single term and hope that we can cling on”, saying working Australians would be the losers if the Government can’t win a second term.

The Treasurer also stepped up his attacks on the Coalition in a closed-door speech to the Australian Workers Union national conference this week, labelling Peter Dutton’s Opposition the “dregs” of “the most embarrassing government since federation”.

Politics had been a pretty wild ride all around the world over the past few years, he told union delegates and ministerial colleagues including Ed Husic, Clare O’Neil and Matt Keogh at the conference in Perth.

He also conceded one of the similarities between WA and his home state of Queensland was that “the politics are often difficult in both of these places”.

But he said Labor had not needed the US election results to know it had to focus on cost of living ahead of the next Australian campaign.

“We didn’t need an election on the other side of the world to tell us we don’t have time as a governing party to stuff around on second-tier issues,” he said in the unscripted remarks.

“We have to stay focused on what really matters and we are. That’s why the cost of living is our major focus as a government.”

The next federal election is at most six months away.

Polls point to a drop in Labor’s primary vote that puts the Coalition ahead in two-party terms and would likely result in a hung parliament.

Dr Chalmers cited a quote he first heard from legendary quarterback Tom Brady to explain how he felt pushing for another term of government: “We didn’t come this far only to come this far.”

“It’s not enough to here and there kind of jag a single term and hope that we can cling on to as many of the gains that we made in two and a half or three years,” he said.

“That’s not enough for us. It’s not enough for us to have come this far and then to only come this far.

“We have done a lot, but we’ve got a lot to do as well and we’ve got lots to lose if we go back to those other characters.”

Labor is planning to campaign on its track record over the past three years — halving inflation, growing jobs numbers and delivering two surpluses along with cost-of-living relief — while laying out its plans for the next term and highlighting the risk Mr Dutton poses.

Dr Chalmers leaned into that risk, labelling Mr Dutton WA’s worst enemy, “angry and arrogant and he’s anti-resources”, while shadow treasurer Angus Taylor was defined by a “kind of comical but also dangerous incompetence”.

If the Coalition got back into power, ordinary working people would not get a look in, he warned.

A lack of policy from the Opposition meant voters were in the dark about what their planned cuts meant for Medicare, housing, industry, veterans or the gains Labor had made for workers.

“Really, what I’m trying to convey to you, and what we need to convey to the Australian people, is if they go back to those guys, they will go backwards,” he said.

“If they go back to the worst elements of a bad government, they’ll go backwards in tangible ways — wages and Medicare, out-of-pocket health costs, and in all of these ways that we’re talking about.

“When they come after housing and when they come after super, people will be worse off in tangible ways and that’s what we need to alert people to.”