Chalmers' good and bad week
The treasurer delivered his most widely supported economic announcement of the year on Monday. This success, though, is likely to be short-lived.
When the opposition's treasury spokesman Angus Taylor stood up for a press conference on Monday, just hours after rival Jim Chalmers had announced his picks for the Reserve Bank board, he seemed more eager to talk about the budget challenges facing the treasurer than the central bank's new top talent.
Taylor refused to detail how the new appointments affected stability or independence, as he had claimed. And when Capital Brief pressed him on whether a different selection of skills and backgrounds would have elicited a different response, he said it was about the “institution” and not about “individuals”.
The problem for Taylor is that Chalmers has secured widespread support for what is likely to be one of his most popular announcements of the year, with economists and business stakeholders welcoming his cool-headed selection of heavyweights for the two new boards.
There was no sign the treasurer had been tempted to stack the boards with more union officials or partisan experts — a key warning of Taylor’s — or to intervene in the RBA’s functions.
