CANBERRA: Federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, denies he has “flicked the switch to vaudeville” because he has no answers to the confluence of bad news about to hit the Australian economy, voters, and the Albanese Government.
Tap dancing onto a specially lit stage erected overnight in the Parliament House media briefing room (main picture) Mr Chalmers also denied unrest within the Labor Party caucus about his handling of the government’s economic messaging.
“Of course persistently high inflation, rapidly rising prices making the cost of living harder to meet for already battling Australians, and the likelihood of a Melbourne Cup Day rise in interest rates by the Reserve Bank will do our government no favours,” he conceded while interspersing his tap dancing with high kicks.
“But as Treasurer I have a serious job to do to manage all of that and I do have the answers, and I will continue to front up here to explain them through you, the media, to the Australian people.
“Any questions?” he added after going down on one knee and displaying jazz hands for several moments.
Mr Chalmers remained kneeling while a reporter cited the forthcoming mid-year budget review and the expectation it would contain further spending cuts worth billions of dollars in a bid to ease inflationary pressures caused by government outlays.
The reporter added: “If you need to cut this spending now, why was the money spent in the first place?”
At that Mr Chalmers ceased his jazz hand gesturing, stood upright, and pointed towards the back of the media briefing room.
“What’s that?” he screamed and quickly tap danced out of the room and back to his office while reporters were distracted and as a heavy velvet theatre curtain installed overnight dropped from the room’s ceiling to block the stage.
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Senator Pauline Hanson says she has taken action after being made aware of the use of popular cartoon identity Bluey in a video and a colouring-in book being marketed by her One Nation party.
When questioned by reporters about the incident, Senator Hanson said: “I have done exactly what I always do whenever anything even vaguely untoward or questionable that occurs within One Nation is drawn to my attention.
“After all it is my party, it’s got my name in it, I am president for life, I have final say on anything and everything that One Nation says or does or stands for.
“So in this case I have acted swiftly as I have done in similar circumstances in the past to make it very clear – very, very clear – that I have absolutely no knowledge of what you are talking about,” she said before declaring she would ban from future news conference all media outlets if they persisted in asking her any questions on any subject.
Meanwhile, One Nation MP, Barnaby Joyce, (below) has admitted that his decision to buy a copy of the cartoon book and video was based on a misunderstanding.
“When I heard about a bluey mag and video in our online merch shop, I just had to have them,” Mr Joyce confessed.
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