Every year, Crikey hands out awards to our best and worst politicians. The guide for determining the best politician is wholly subjective — it’s the person who I think has been most effective in influencing politics and using power to achieve results. Many readers think it should just be a popularity contest; many object if I dare to suggest a conservative politician has been the most effective. Well, I’ll make my case, you can disagree. In 2023, politics was dominated by the failed Voice to Parliament referendum and inflation, so it’s hard to stray from those two issues in considering who performed best. See what you think:
Politician of the year
Winner: Jim Chalmers
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, with Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, delivered the first budget surplus in 15 years. This was helped, yes, by a windfall from extractive industries, but nearly all of that was put onto the budget bottom line, even as progressives demanded more spending that would have exacerbated inflation.
Unemployment has held at around 3.7% throughout the year, while participation rose to a new record of 67%. Inflation has fallen from 7.8% at the end of 2022 to 5.4%, with government policies on rent and energy playing an important role in the reduction. Wages growth — also boosted by government policies — reached 4%, albeit probably only briefly before falling back into the 3-4% range. These were good outcomes for ordinary households and great outcomes by the standards of the past decade, which has seen wage stagnation, unemployment with a four or five in front of it, and deficit after deficit.
Chalmers has also elevated competition as a priority area by establishing a review by a high-powered panel, including Rod Sims and Danielle Wood, whom Chalmers also appointed to lead the Productivity Commission (PC). The only blot on his policy copybook is an unseemly effort to nobble the PC.
Where Chalmers falls down is where much of the Albanese government falls down: his ability to convey an effective message. He’s a clearer communicator than Anthony Albanese, but it’s the message, not the delivery, that is the problem. Labor should be owning every single one of the above achievements every day. It’s Chalmers’ job to make sure that happens in 2024.
Honourable mentions:
Peter Dutton
Okay, okay, you’re all cancelling your subscriptions, but Dutton began the year an absolute mess when the Coalition lost the seat of Aston. In response, he hit the panic button — and it worked.
Immediately declaring his opposition to the Voice to Parliament, he helped lead a successful No campaign. He also adroitly used whatever gifts came his way, ramping up his opposition to immigration despite his own terrible record on border security as Home Affairs minister and the cries of business for more workers. And he masterfully exploited the indefinite immigration detention issue when the High Court chucked it abruptly into Labor’s lap.
Think he’s immoral? Reckon he’d be a terrible PM? Can’t stand him? Bad luck — he’s been as crudely politically effective in 2023 as he was ineffective in 2022. Just ask Labor, which is ending the year badly rattled.
Deborah O’Neill
Edmund Tadros and Neil Chenoweth got the Gold Walkley for their PwC reporting. On the political side, it’s been the Labor senator from NSW who has used her leadership of the Corporations and Financial Services Committee to grill the Big Four on misconduct, conflict of interest and the accumulated filth of a decade of government overreliance on consultants.
Assiduously using the committee’s processes to force the firms to produce paperwork they’d far prefer to have kept secret, O’Neill turned 2023 into the year that the Big Four finally come up against a force they couldn’t PowerPoint, bluster or bullshit their way around. Shout-out to the Greens’ Barbara Pocock for going all guns blazing against them as well.
Dud of the year
Winner: David Van
The award for the year’s worst politician, previously handed to such titans as Scott Morrison and Christian Porter, has a number of strong contenders in 2023. Richard Marles is a good all-round dud who reliably underperforms year in, year out, and now has a truly vast canvas on which to play with crayons. Angus Taylor as shadow treasurer — a role I suspect most Crikey readers and probably 95% of the voting population don’t know he holds — seems to have taken his political lessons from the Marise Payne School of Political Invisibility. Catherine King’s Buzzfeed-style “Ten great reasons why I knocked back Qatar Airways” was a triumph.
But how can we go past David Van? A man not merely accused of indecent conduct — claims he denies — but who was turfed from his own party as a result and decided to continue to occupy a Senate spot anyway. Call me “#senatorsixpack”, indeed. And bonus points for pretty much everyone who ignored or dismissed Lidia Thorpe when she first accused Van of assault and harassment but sat up straight and demanded action when a white woman did the same. Plus ça change.
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