Things gets personal in Treasurers’ debate
The Treasurer was told he had a “glass jaw”, while his counterpart was accused of “not putting in the work” in the lively debate.
Moderator Ross Greenwood, the Sky News Australia business editor, forced each leader to face their flaws in the debate on Wednesday night, as critics pointed out.
“You’ve got a bit of a glass jaw … you don’t cop criticism well,” Greenwood said to Chalmers, about comments from his colleagues.
Chalmers responded that he sometimes did get “a bit grumpy”.
“I think over time I’ve learned to understand that you take the good with the bad,” he said.
“I think I’ve learnt over time to focus on the objective observers of the job that I’m doing and I think, ultimately, the Australian people will judge that rather than the kind of partisan commentators from time to time.”
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The moderator told Taylor, a Rhodes scholar, that people suggested “that maybe you don’t put the work in”.
“There’s lots of free advice in this game,” Taylor said.
“You get it, Jim gets it, we all get it. But I tell you what, I work every single day for those hardworking Australians who work in Jim’s electorate, in my electorate, right around Australia […] I come from a hardworking family.”
The federal Treasurer and his opposition counterpart clashed over mounting spending, claims of secret cuts and falling living standards in the first Treasurer’s election debate.
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But in their pitch to voters, both men urged Australians not to risk it by electing the other side.
Taylor borrowed a slogan from former Liberal prime minister John Howard, casting the Coalition as a superior economic manager compared to Labor, which he accused of overseeing a record decline in living standards.
“We are living in uncertain and tumultuous times, and the choice of this election is, who do you trust to manage the economy?” he said.
Chalmers said electing the Coalition would unwind the progress the economy had made under Labor.
“There could not be a more important time for the responsible economic management, which has been the defining feature of this Albanese government,” he said.
“There could not be a worse time to risk Peter Dutton’s Coalition of cuts and chaos, which would make Australians worse off and take Australians backwards.”
US President Donald Trump’s tariffs have reshaped the election debate, sidelining the previously predominant issue of the cost of living and blunting the Coalition’s attack line that people have become poorer under Labor.
Chalmers attempted to tie the opposition to Trump, accusing it of copying his policy platforms, such as the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting agency the Department of Government Efficiency.
“We’ve got an Opposition Leader and an opposition which is absolutely full of these kind of DOGE-y sycophants who have hitched their wagon to American-style slogans and policies and especially cuts which would make Australians worse off,” he said.
Taylor criticised the Albanese government for presiding over a budget, released last month, that forecast $179 billion of deficits over the next five years and a return to a structural deficit.
But neither offered a credible plan for economic reform to balance the budget when pressed by Greenwood.
