Labor ministers leak budget messaging to avoid shocking taxpayers

Whatever Australia’s financial situation, you’ll never hear a government say things are going badly.

Politics always requires those in power to demonstrate power and success; That’s why Chancellor of the Exchequer Jim Chalmers reacted to the confirmation of a $10 billion deficit in the final budget result last September by saying it was “the biggest ever positive development in the budget in a single parliamentary term”.

Chalmers, who boasted of his first budget surplus at least 141 times before managing another budget surplus at the end of his first term, described the budget deficit as “one-fifth of a year”. [Labor] was taken over and was about a third of the Treasury’s estimates [2025] vote”.