Australia's Treasurer Jim Chalmers speaks during a television interview during the 2026 IMF and World Bank Group Spring Meetings in Washington. | Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images
In a Canberra Playbook Podcast interview Jim Chalmers accused Liberals of wanting Australians to suffer, as their path back to power.
CANBERRA — Treasurer Jim Chalmers has accused the Liberals and One Nation of cheering inflation and wanting interest rate rises for political gain.
Speaking to POLITICO’s Canberra Playbook Podcast, Chalmers admitted “the pressures on people right now are very substantial and obviously that keeps me awake at night.”
He went on to accuse his opposite numbers Tim Wilson and Barnaby Joyce of trying to talk Australia into a recession.
“They desperately want confidence to be low. They desperately want inflation to be high.”
“Their goal here is to turn their talking down the economy and all of their endless negativity into a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Chalmers said.
Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson rejected the charge, telling POLITICO that Chalmers is living in “fantasy land.”
“The Treasurer might want to deflect as the economic news closes in on him, but he needs to be reminded of the old rule of finger pointing. One finger might be pointing externally, but three fingers are pointing back at you: your active inflation agenda, your higher interest rates and higher prices at the supermarket.”
Chalmers drew a contrast between his opponents and the political landscape of previous generations: “People used to take a very dim view of those who went out of their way to talk down the Australian economy,” he said.
The treasurer went on to pick former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, a Liberal, as a colleague from the opposing side he got along with.
Chalmers’ “self-fulfilling prophecy” argument rests on confidence: If households and businesses believe a downturn is coming, they may cut spending, hiring and investment, weakening growth further. It’s unclear what his political opponents could do to stoke inflation. Weaker demand tends to reduce price pressures, so Chalmers would need to show how the warnings could lift inflation expectations or raise costs elsewhere.
Chalmers refused to be drawn on what mistakes he may have made over his four and half years in the job.
“I’m reluctant to kind of go through four and a half years and give you a sense of what I think we’ve done perfectly and where we could have done better. But I do acknowledge that, from time to time, you can explain things better, you can consult more,” he said.
Instead, Chalmers kept the focus on his opponents: “They would prefer the pressures on people to be worse, not better, because they see that, really, as the only path back to office.”
Chalmbers brushed off suggestions of tension between him and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. “Some days we speak multiple times a day,” he said.