Australia is facing an existential tsunami. But Jim Chalmers’ economic roundtable risks putting lipstick on a dinosaur

‘Jim Chalmers has made no secret of his admiration for Abundance, the book by Erza Klein and Derek Thompson that forensically examines the ways the overlay of bureaucracy and compliance have hindered development in the United States.’ Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

When Bob Hawke decided to host a summit in Canberra on the economic future of Australia, shortly after his election as prime minister in 1983, most thought it was a window-dressing gimmick by the flamboyant showman politician. “This consensus is bullshit,” the New South Wales Labor premier Neville Wran declared. “It won’t work.”

But it did.