Chalmers’ ‘messay’ is a Rorschach test – there’s something for everyone to hate

On the other side of the political ledger, Chalmers’ notion of “co-investment”, or private-public-partnerships, sounds to progressives an awful lot like, well, neoliberalism. As does “impact investing” which is – as a practitioner once confided in me, a really nice idea, but “sometimes you should do something just because it’s the right thing to do instead of pretending it’s going to make money”.

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And “values-driven capitalism”? It’s either boardroom socialism or crony capitalism. Or both, depending on how you align.

Does the treasurer mean any of these extremes? Probably not. But the essay is the first time that anyone on the Labor side has attempted to lay out the ideas which are popular in its party room since Albanese won the election with a small-target strategy. Chalmers has put himself at the centre of a debate we didn’t have during the election.

Naturally, the opposition thinks he’s dangerous and wrong. Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor argues that Chalmers’ essay reveals “a Labor government that believes it knows better than hardworking, aspirational Australians”.

For Wood, who gave a keynote address at Chalmers’ Jobs and Skills Summit last year, the ideas don’t seem “totally revolutionary”. But she is cautious on the idea of “co-investment”. While it’s necessary in the climate space, where there’s a need to move fast, she says it’s wrong to believe that projects like these will be delivered better or cheaper in partnership with the private sector. “The government isn’t going to get something for nothing,” she says, “If they think it’s worth doing, they should just do it themselves.”

Economist Cameron Murray makes pretty much the same point in his book Rigged: How networks of powerful mates rip off everyday Australians. He argues private-public partnerships privatise profits and socialise losses. On Chalmers’ essay, he says: “It’s a classic Labor take of pretending to be able to get the private sector to do what it is not good at – unpriced social production – while hiding subsidies and pointing out that they aren’t in the budget.”

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With the prospect of privatised gains and socialised losses, you’d have expected business to be quite keen on some of Chalmers’ agenda. But business advocacy groups have been wary of the government since they were brought into the tent at the Jobs and Skills Summit only to be blindsided by multi-employer bargaining. They’re unlikely to come rushing to the treasurer’s aid. Indeed, being kicked out of the tent so quickly took the head right off the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia.

As a general rule, when there’s this much criticism from both left and right, you’re somewhere over the target. But this time, it turns out Chalmers is the target. All the Rorschach tests agree.

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