PETER VAN ONSELEN: How a VERY mean email Jim Chalmers wrote about Kevin Rudd has backfired badly on him - and who the Treasurer should really be begging and crying to now
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is on his way to the US, where one of his first meetings will be with Ambassador Kevin Rudd.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is on his way to the US, where one of his first meetings will be with Ambassador Kevin Rudd.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that uncomfortable meeting.
To put it bluntly the pair of Queenslanders dont like each other very much.
Chalmers used to be a political staffer to Wayne Swan - the sum total of his pre-parliamentary career experience - back when the former treasurer and deputy PM famously let fly at Rudd during leadership tensions over a decade ago.
In 2012, Swan released a brutal statement slamming the former PM he had worked so closely with. It came at a time when Rudd was considering another tilt at the leadership, to dethrone Julia Gillard and get his old job back.
The party has given Kevin Rudd all the opportunities in the world and he wasted them with his dysfunctional decision making and his deeply demeaning attitude towards other people including our caucus colleagues, the acidic Swan statement read.
It was, in fact, then political flak Jim Chalmers who penned those words for his boss, reflecting a deep antipathy towards Rudd both men share.
Rudd never forgot the attacks.
Australias ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, is famous for his long memory...
In Rudds memoir, he claimed Chalmers pleaded to be allowed to keep his preselection, breaking down in tears
He subsequently claimed that Swan was incompetent and unfit to be treasurer, saying that he only appointed him to the role to appease the right wing factional operatives ambitions.
In his memoir Rudd said Swan was not up to the job.
If Rudd thinks Swan was unfit to be treasurer back then, what does he really think about Swans mini-me ex-staffer Chalmers now?
Not much, one assumes, especially when you factor in the encounter between the pair Rudd also detailed in his memoir.
After Rudd had returned as PM ahead of the 2013 election he claims Chalmers broke down in tears in a meeting between the pair, as he begged to be allowed to keep his preselection for the Queensland seat of Rankin.
According to Rudds account of the meeting, Chalmers flew to Canberra to meet with Rudd to plead for his political life.
Rudd claims Chalmers broke down in tears in front of me, the pair then had words before Chalmers cried again.
Chalmers has never shared his version of how the meeting unfolded.
The former PM also claimed in his 2018 memoir that he never heard from Chalmers again after leaving parliament five years earlier.
That all changed, of course, when Anthony Albanese became Labor leader in 2019, promoting Chalmers to the shadow treasury role.
Jim Chalmers is all smiles here as he greets Kevin Rudd during Labors 2022 federal election campaign. Albo and Rudd have long been close
Albo and Rudd have long been close. Albo was one of the few senior factional figures to stand by Rudd throughout his leadership showdowns with Julia Gillard.
Once Albo became PM, he appointed Rudd as Australias ambassador to the US, meaning that Rudds path would regularly cross with that of Chalmers whenever the Treasurer visited the US.
This latest trip comes as the IMF adjusts its forecast for Australian inflation next year, moving it up rather than down. Not the sort of change Chalmers would like very much.
The Treasurer has long claimed international factors are behind Australias stubbornly high inflation rate, yet the IMF has forecast inflation in Australia to be higher than all advanced economies worldwide, except Slovakias.
Australia is ranked 40th out of 41 advanced economies - a shockingly bad outcome.
If the IMF is right the chance of the RBA reducing interest rates early next year, as is being predicted by many, would likely require worsening economic conductions, rising unemployment or both.
In other words, bad economic news could lead to good news on interest rates.
With the federal election due by May next year Chalmers will be desperate for RBA Governor Michele Bullock to drop rates.
If Chalmers thought it would do any good maybe he would resort to the same pleading and crying tactics that worked on Kevin Rudd back in 2012 to convince Bullock to lower rates.
If rates do come down early next year, despite IMF predictions of rising inflation later in the year, Labor will have threaded a very delicate political needle.
It would be able to claim that it managed the economy such that rates reduced in time for the election... before bad economic news ensues later in the year, well after polling day.
Under such circumstances Labor would be well placed to ward off a Coalition scare campaign on the economy.
