Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has identified what's missing from Australia's inflation crisis: sufficient appreciation of Katy Gallagher.
With households absorbing higher and higher prices, and a fifth interest rate rise this year announced just yesterday, the Finance Minister wants an 'acknowledgement of the hard work we have done over the last four years'.
That's what she demanded in an ABC television appearance this morning. Seriously. What breathtaking arrogance.
Australians cutting back on groceries, cancelling holidays and wondering how to meet their next mortgage repayment apparently need to find time to applaud the government.
So there you have it Australia, pick up a pen and send a thank you card to the minister the old fashioned way, because that's what she thinks she deserves. Extraordinary.
Hard work is the minimum expected of a minister of the crown. Competence would be nice too, but we've learnt to accept that's not always possible in the theatre of modern politics.
The out of touch sense of entitlement in Gallagher's remarks, timed as they are, is breathtaking.
Millions of Australians are working hard themselves. Some are taking extra shifts simply to stand still.
They have every right to expect the Finance Minister to explain her decisions without copping demands to recognise her efforts.
But the political stupidity of Gallagher demanding recognition - at this time - is only half of the problem. Her economic defence deserves scrutiny too.
Gallagher says the data shows government spending isn't 'setting the prices in the economy'.
Who does she think she's fooling?
Government spending (which is at a 40 year record high, outside of the pandemic, by the way!) doesn't have to determine supermarket prices directly to contribute to the inflation problem.
It adds to demand for workers, materials and services. When demand exceeds the economy's capacity to supply them, prices come under pressure.
That is pretty much what the RBA Governor, Michele Bullock, said yesterday.
The RBA assesses public and private demand together. Canberra's spending doesn't get some magical exemption because ministers describe it as necessary. And plenty of public spending fuels private demand anyway.
So there you have it Australia, inflation may be sky high, but apparently it's time to pick up a pen and send a thank you card to Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers
Gallagher's lack of any sort of economics qualification whatsoever doesn't exclude her from serving as the nation's Finance Minister, believe it or not.
But her commentary certainly highlights the limits of her economic understanding. This is the same minister who recently said that 'the challenges that we're having now in relation to inflation are not caused by government spending.' Denial isn't just a river in Egypt!
Not only did Bullock explicitly disagree with that falsehood, even the Treasurer Jim Chalmers couldn't concur with the remarks, acknowledging that government spending of course plays a role.
Slower growth in spending, when the previous growth was off the charts, does not equate to cutting spending. And cutting spending in one area only to increase it in another isn't a real cut either.
The hapless Finance Minister is stretching a qualified defence into something far more sweeping and inaccurate.
Most revealingly, Gallagher has repeatedly declined to commit to delivering more savings than new spending in December's Budget update.
She wants recognition for her fiscal discipline while declining to promise to enforce fiscal discipline. It's bizarro world stuff.
There are competing demands on every government. Managing those choices is the job. Household budgets face competing demands too, with considerably less room for excuses. Right now families are finding ways to cut their spending because they have no choice, because the government wouldn't cut its own spending to help avoid a situation where the RBA had to raise rates instead.
Meanwhile, the likes of Gallagher won't even admit that spending is an issue.
Instead she demands applause for her self-styled brilliance.
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