Newsrooms sook at substantial national reform and global successes

As evidence of economic progress piles up, the anti-Labor reporters redouble efforts to deceive, as Alan Austin reports.

TREASURER Jim Chalmers already has the accolade of generating Australia’s best-performing economy over a full financial year since records have been kept.

That was the year that just ended in June. He is now enhancing his bio with achievements in redirecting spending to the most critical needs.

This was confirmed in last Thursday’s report from the Bureau of Statistics (ABS), ‘Public sector employment and earnings’ for the period June 2022 to June 2026. This shows public servants in Australia’s Commonwealth, state and local governments increased by 60,300 in the year to June. That’s up 2.32%.

According to ABS head of labour statistics Sean Crick, three sectors account for nearly 90% of public sector jobs: Public administration and safety, Education and training, and Health care and social assistance.

Mr Crick said:

“Of these three industries, Health care and social assistance recorded the strongest rate of growth in 2025-26 for both jobs and wages.”

Australia's craven newsrooms suffer worst week in a very bad year

The mainstream media continue to deny the positives, amplify the negatives and fabricate falsehoods.

Spending carefully monitored

Significantly, the ABS showed the Commonwealth added only 3,700 public service jobs last year, a rise of just 0.96%. That contrasts with the total workforce increase of 1.79% and GDP growth of 2.14%.

Most public servants recruited were at state and local levels.

Government jobs were trimmed in some categories, including information media, which has 800 fewer workers across all levels than in 2023.

No mainstream newsroom reported this accurately.

A snide, error-laden segment on News24 maliciously falsified the upbeat ABS report:

“The number of public servants across state and federal governments grew by about 60 thousand over the year. Sixty thousand! That’s the population of Wagga Wagga, all added to the taxpayers’ tab... We wonder why we have an inflation problem. This news comes as the private economic pain just gets worse.”

No mention of the thousands of citizens being cared for by additional doctors and nurses at public hospitals. Silence on improved health outcomes. No reference to reduced poverty and homelessness achieved by specialist welfare staff. Nothing about the extra billions collected from tax-evaders by new tax office sleuths.

Australia’s incompetent newsrooms fail to report best financial year ever

Last week’s gross domestic product (GDP) numbers confirm Australia’s economy is a world leader again.

Spending steadily reducing

The May Budget predicted outlays of $829.6 billion this financial year, with $202.5 billion allocated to the first quarter ending 30 September. The latest Finance Department update shows September quarter expenditure was just $198.7 billion, a saving of $3.8 billion.

No newsroom reported this.

They are too busy concocting misleading or blatantly false stories about spending, including these:

‘No winners as government faces pressure to cut spending’ (Seven News, 4 November);
‘TV host slams Labor for expanding public sector to chase votes’ (News24, 6 November);
‘Cabinet colleagues back embattled Treasurer Jim Chalmers over handling of economy’ (news.com.au, 4 November);
‘There are no good choices left for Albanese, only hard ones’ (Brisbane Times, 4 November);
‘Labor promised an easier life. Four years on, we are paying the price’ (Spectator Australia, 4 November); and
‘Taylor says PM and treasurer in denial about economy following RBA rate hike’ (ABC News, 4 November).

Spending will stay higher

Australia’s two treasurers who won world’s best finance minister awards did so with budget reform, among other accomplishments.

Paul Keating got federal spending down to 22.9% of GDP in 1990, well below the 25.7% under his hapless predecessor, John Howard. In 2013, Wayne Swan reduced spending to a creditable 23.8% of GDP, given the pressure of the Global Financial Crisis. That contrasted with Peter Costello’s 25% in 2001.

Unfortunately, those days are gone, thanks to nine years of appalling incompetence by three successive Coalition treasurers. Government spending snuck back above 25% in their first three years, then surged to 31.3% during COVID. In their last year, post-COVID, 2021-22, spending was 26.4% of GDP.

Top 40 datasets showing quality of life in Australia steadily rising

While newsrooms provoke fear and anxiety about concocted “crises”, life is better than ever.

Those nine wasted years caused debt and interest liabilities to soar. Gross interest payable this year, now that rates are back to normal, is forecast at $29.6 billion.

The second structural shift is that six years of interest rates at or below 1.5% forced countless seniors into poverty and homelessness when their retirement savings yielded paltry returns and were soon exhausted. They now rely on welfare.

The third disastrous Coalition failure was mismanaging the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which must now be restructured to curb its burgeoning cost.

The Coalition’s fourth and most destructive fiasco is the AUKUS defence contract, which followed two previous expensive welched contracts.

According to the public Inquiry conducted by Peter Garrett and Admiral Chris Barrie, AUKUS is the ‘worst, riskiest and most costly’ Australian defence decision ever.

The stark reality is spending at Keating and Swan levels is over. Australians have the choice of Chalmers levels between 26.2 and 26.8%, as shown in the forward estimates, or higher under the Coalition, but with worse outcomes.

Albo and the Commonwealth

The other big media sook last week concerned Prime Minister Albanese travelling to Antigua and Barbuda for the biennial Commonwealth heads of government meeting (CHOGM).
Desperate to ensure every “story” damages Labor, multiple outlets castigated the PM for departing with the economy as it is.

Of course, they have refused to report that Australia is the only economy in the world with the jobless, inflation and interest rates all below 4.9%, triple-A credit ratings and median wealth per adult above A$300,000.

The Murdoch media headed its tawdry piece, ‘Anthony Albanese raises backlash to overseas CHOGM trip with King Charles amid interest rate pain’.

Similar snivelling censures ran in The Nightly, the Daily Mail, ABC News, SBS, The Australian and The Age.

Those outlets had no problem with John Howard attending CHOGM in Nigeria in 2003 when the jobless rate was 5.7%, or Tony Abbott going to Sri Lanka in 2013 with 5.8% unemployed, or Malcolm Turnbull flying to Malta in 2015 with the jobless at 5.9%. Craven hypocrites.

Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001 and Bluesky @alanaustin.bsky.social.