What if the most important thing in Jim Chalmers’ first budget is the thing his critics are writing off as a gimmick?
Australia’s new treasurer has a lot on his plate. He has commissioned a complete review of the way the Reserve Bank works, he is drawing up a statement to parliament he says people will find “confronting” and he is preparing the second of two budgets in one year; in October, updating the Coalition’s budget in March.
In what some see as a gimmick, it will be Australia’s first budget to benchmark its measures against their impact on the wellbeing of the Australian people: Australia’s first “wellbeing budget”.
