It is clear that our Prime Minister either has no idea about Australia’s economic data or is deliberately misleading voters.
I prefer to believe that he is incompetent rather than a liar: a lesser evil.
In an extraordinary display of ignorance on an ABC radio interview this morning, Anthony Albanese suggested that the US economy is growing more slowly than ours, using that (incorrect) fact to help explain why US interest rates are falling but ours are not.
When asked why US interest rates are falling when ours are not, the Prime Minister put forward this false narrative as an excuse: “Because the (US) economy is so slow, that’s why they’re cutting rates.”
Seriously? The US economy is growing faster than Australia’s, by a considerable margin.
Is Albo acknowledging that his government is presiding over a declining economy with tepid growth?
Or do you simply ignore the information coming from the United States? Do you not receive information on this matter? Or do you receive it but do not bother to read it?
There is really no good explanation for a prime minister being so ill-informed.
Sorry, what? Anthony Albanese made “very strange” remarks about the US economy in a tense ABC Radio interview with Patricia Karvelas
Albo ridiculed Karvelas’ economic questions as “not very intelligent”
As Harvard economist and PhD economics professor Richard Holden told the Daily Mail Australia:
‘It is very strange for the Prime Minister to say that the Federal Reserve cut rates because its ‘economy is very slow’ compared to Australia’s.
‘The U.S. economy grew at a 3 percent annualized rate in the latest quarter, compared with Australia’s 0.8 percent.’
The US economy is growing almost four times faster than Australia’s, but the prime minister says US economic growth is “very slow”.
This is a harsh criticism of the job that Treasurer Jim Chalmers is doing in managing Australia’s economy.
Professor Holden is right with his figures, while the Prime Minister seems lost at sea.
Which begs the question: why does our Prime Minister not even know the basics of the comparative state of the Australian economy compared to the situation in the United States?
Believe it or not, Albo’s economic ignorance doesn’t end there. In another attempt to justify why rates are falling in the US but not here, the Prime Minister added: “Inflation peaked higher in the US and interest rates peaked higher in the US than here.”
That statement is at least factually true, even if it doesn’t help Albo’s argument in the slightest.
The fact that inflation has been higher in the United States than ever before here only serves to highlight how much better the United States has done in getting inflation under control since then.
In the US, it is currently just 2.5% and is projected to fall further, much lower than Australia’s latest quarterly inflation figure of 3.8%, which actually rose from the previous quarter.
Professor Holden is also scathing about the Prime Minister’s attempt to portray the US as a country that is mismanaging its economy compared to Australia’s handling of various economic challenges:
“What are you talking about? The US has raised interest rates, beaten inflation, has a strong economy and is now cutting them. In Australia, it is almost exactly the opposite.”
“The bigger question is why the Prime Minister doesn’t seem to understand this,” Professor Holden adds.
While Albo chose to weigh in on interest rates and inflation, albeit wrongly, when asked, in the same interview he declared himself ignorant when it came to fiscal policy.
Asked whether his government was considering changes to negative leverage and capital gains taxes, Albo said: “I don’t answer those kinds of questions.”
It’s really remarkable, given that the Labour Party is trying to claim that it has the answers to concerns about housing affordability in the community. I suppose he’s just the Prime Minister.
It is not surprising that the Greens and the Coalition have a position of superiority over the Labor Party on this issue.
Recent opinion polls show voters have little faith in Labour’s ability to manage everything from the economy to cost-of-living challenges and the housing crisis.
As bad as it may be for a prime minister to refuse to answer simple questions about fiscal policy, it at least ensured he didn’t get the facts wrong on another economic talking point in the same interview.
Perhaps Albo should also have refused to answer questions about inflation and interest rates, just as he chose silence on fiscal policy?
As former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln once said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”
If you think I’m being unnecessarily harsh about Albo’s interview disaster, I should remind you that during the interview he was willing to offer some sarcastic observations about the quality of the questions he was being asked.
At one point, when pressed for an answer by ABC Radio National presenter Patricia Karvelas, a visibly grumpy Albo replied: “They’re not very intelligent questions.”
It was a sure sign that he knew his manipulation, his bluster and his false narratives were not working.
But Chalmers did not fare much better. When appearing for his morning political interviews, the Treasurer attempted to assert: “As far as the Australian situation is concerned, inflation is coming down quite substantially.”
UNSW economics professor Richard Holden said Albo’s interpretation was “very strange”
Really? As mentioned, the latest quarterly figures were pointing in the wrong direction, with inflation at 3.8 per cent, well above the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2-3 per cent.
And while the latest monthly results show a slight improvement, as the RBA has already pointed out, this is largely artificial because government energy rebates are distorting the data in the short term.
So, whether it is the Prime Minister or the Treasurer, the political leaders who run our trillion-dollar economy seem unable to read the data that anyone can access and honestly and accurately convey what they tell us.
Albo made much of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s poor relationship with the truth before the last federal election.
Now that he is Prime Minister, Albo’s situation is getting worse.
