Treasurer Jim Chalmers has lightly taken commentators and cartoonists to task in a welcoming rev-up address to Treasury staff, rejecting description of the economic situation that Labor has inherited as a "s--- sandwich".
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The speech to staff, including secretary Steven Kennedy, took place at the Treasury building in Canberra, a building he revealed he runs past every morning and a building in which he helped to prepare five budgets as an advisor to then Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan in the Rudd-Gillard years.
Dr Chalmers said he wanted to personally convey gratitude for all of the work that Treasury has done over a long period of time, and in particular for an "absolutely first-class" incoming government brief.
He fired up staff by saying the new Labor government was counting on them in a "really substantial way" to implement its agenda and economic policy.
"And we're not just counting on some of you, we're not just counting on a few of you, we're counting on all of you," the Treasurer said on Thursday.
"We need all of your ideas, all of your brain power, all of your commitment, all of your experience, all of your frankness, and all of your foresight. That is true, not just at the senior levels, it's not just true of one division or another, I mean it when I talk about the whole place. We need the whole place firing, because we've got a big job to do."
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But the task ahead involves "real challenges" in repairing the budget and combating significant economic headwinds.
"Now, the commentators, and the cartoonists in particular, I've noticed, have taken to describing this economic situation that we're dealing with now, if you'll pardon the language, as a bit of a s--- sandwich," Dr Chalmers said.
"Obviously, of course, we do have high and rising inflation, rising interest rates, falling real wages, a heap of debt in the Budget, and those are all real challenges, of course, that we need to help to address.
"And we've had some of those longer term pressures as well, around productivity, around business investment. We can't just kind of flick a switch and make all of those challenges go away, particularly some of those that have been entrenched over a longer period."
Dr Chalmers said there was cause for optimism and Australia had a "lot going for us".
"I don't really see it the same way that the commentators and the cartoonists see it," he said. "I think that there are good reasons to be optimistic about our economy, and also optimistic about our country, so long as we are good enough to navigate this tricky set of circumstances that we've inherited in the near-term.
"We have all of the people, and all of the brains, and all of the commitment, and all of the experience that we need to do a really good job navigating this tricky combination of circumstances that we face right now."