Jim Chalmers won’t have good news in Myefo. Instead, he’ll be trying to sell Labor’s good intentions

The midyear economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo) will try to give the impression of Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher ‘gamely battling the rising tide of spending pressures’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

A penny-pinching Jim Chalmers will reveal a multibillion-dollar improvement in the federal budget that will still see the deficit nearly quadruple to $36.8bn in this financial year.

The treasurer is the master of expectations management, and this week’s midyear economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo) will be an exercise in selling the Albanese government’s fiscal rectitude: Chalmers and Katy Gallagher gamely battling the rising tide of spending pressures.