Jim Chalmers is a handsome-looking rooster, isn’t he? Silver-tongued devil, too. Could talk economics ‘til Pauline Hanson makes sense and what’s more, sounds like he knows what he’s talking about too!

Which is a nice change from Josh Frydenberg, right? Joshie knew so little about running national economies that he was simply a must-employ by some big bank with more dollars than sense.

But here’s my guess about Jimbo, if I can call him that. He would have Peter Dutton’s chance of ever being PM here or in hell to provide any answer that made any sense if asked how the legislated third-stage income tax cuts due to come into effect from 2024 have anything whatsoever to do with his strategy for turning Australia’s economy around.

See what I’ve done there. I’ve been banging on so long about these disgraceful, un-Labor like tax cuts that favour the well-off that I’ve assumed you are as sick of listening to me rant on about them as I am to continue these rants that Albanese and Co need to axe these cuts yesterday.

So, sorry for sucking you in by leading off with some nice references to our charming, well-spoken national treasurer but I just want to restate my case … probably not for the final time.

I remain fed up with internal Labor Party spin that the legislated tax cuts would be too hard to repeal. Bullshit!

I’m sick and tired of people on Twitter saying the cuts are well down the track and Labor doesn’t have to do anything about them now and they can axe or tweak them later with less political damage done. Bullshit!

That Labor could lose the next election if it breaks that election promise. Switch to caps lock for emphasis: BULLSHIT!

Well, I’ve got news for those fuckknuckles out there. Albanese will axe those tax cuts and I just can’t stand to watch him being led kicking and screaming towards doing the right thing.

The smelly bottom line is that a weak-kneed Labor Party got wedged/conned into supporting the stage-three tax cuts in the first place.

They were introduced and promoted by Liberal prime ministers excited by the idea of being PM but with no interest whatsoever in a federal government having the income it needs to do the things it historically has been expected to do. It was all about axing the progressive income-tax scales that had served the nation so well for many decades. It was all about smaller government and farming out to privateer mates the crumbs that were left.

As stated at top, Chalmers would have no chance whatsoever of explaining how giving well-off people more cash in their pockets dovetails in any way, shape or form, with his plans to increase productivity, profits and employees’ wages and living standards. They are chalk and cheese; a tax cut to the wealthy, a tax cut that favours men over women, is the last thing this nation needs.

The longer Albanese and Chalmers refuse to accept that breaking their election promise on those tax cuts is an absolutely necessity, the worse they look. The Sun-Herald splash last weekend (at top) explained that costings by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office for the Greens showed the tax cuts would provide major income tax relief to high-income earners at a cost of $243 billion by 2032-33.

It simply added more weight to all the economists, the Teals and other inependents, unions, welfare groups, etc, bloody, etc, who continue to make solid, irrefutable cases that a nation with a zillion dollars worth of debt – so that’s why that bank thought Josh was a must-hire! – cannot afford to waste $243 billion on unfair tax cuts when that dosh must be spent in far more urgent, far more productive ways.

Albo and Jimbo need to front those media microphones yesterday. They need to be unafraid to look at the cameras and openly admit, yes, they are breaking a promise. Even many of those who were going to pocket $9000 in savings will forgive them for it. The votes they will gain will far exceed those they will lose.

Sure, polls, like the Resolve outfit’s in Tuesday’s SMH (also at top) come and go but if those two men think they might lose the 2025 election if they break that stupid, illogical, promise, especially with what a federal ICAC is expected to reveal in the next couple of years, then maybe they only deserve one term.

Don Gordon-Brown