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More than three months after handing down the May federal budget, Treasurer Jim Chalmers continues to face blowback from the business community.
The simmering tension between the government and business chiefs was brought into sharp focus again last week when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chalmers filed into the ballroom of Sydney’s Sofitel, flanked by senior staff, for the Business Council’s annual dinner.
So our guess is Chalmers may be feeling a little vulnerable without the counsel of one of his most-trusted senior advisors in the coming months, as his chief of staff, Claudia Crawford, heads off on parental leave.
Crawford, a well-respected former investment banker and economist, is among the most influential staffers in Parliament House. She became the first woman to be chief of staff to a federal treasurer when Labor took power in 2022, a big-name hire at the time, and has worked with the treasurer on and off for the past decade or so, dating back to the Wayne Swan days.
And with the ongoing blowback to Labor’s May budget, Crawford leaves big shoes to fill. The treasurer’s office declined to comment.
Crawford has been a key fixture in the treasurer’s management of major stakeholders since Labor came to government. Among them are some of the biggest names in corporate Australia, many of whom didn’t like what they saw in the May budget.
The departure may not be a hard exit. But Chalmers isn’t the only one whose office is undergoing a period of change. It was only a couple of months ago that CBD brought word Albanese’s principal speechwriter, James Newton, had resigned less than halfway through the PM’s second term. Author Dennis Glover popped up in his place.
The treasurer’s staff have been informed of the departure over the last week or so, CBD hears, turning attention to who Chalmers will bring in while she’s on leave.
It’s hard to imagine the recruitment drive will be easy. The political transfer market isn’t exactly teeming with people who, like Crawford, are Harvard-educated operators willing to sacrifice the salaries they could be making in the private sector for, er, the Labor cause.
Then factor in that whoever takes the job would, at least as far as we are aware, be brought in as a seat-warmer for Crawford, and it’s a tough sell. Still, we look forward to hearing more.
Brat-spotting
US President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Australia, David Brat, was finally confirmed by the US Senate this month, at which point the post had been vacant for about 20 months.
The US ambassador-in-waiting’s arrival has been hotly anticipated for months. Even before the appointment was confirmed, Brat’s nomination received a warm welcome from Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, the nation’s most prominent Friend of Trump. No doubt others will be clamouring for his ear, too.
So when plane spotters claimed online that Brat was on board a “US government Gulfstream G700” that landed in Sydney last week, we weren’t the only ones left wondering about the whereabouts of the former congressman.
When reached out on Sunday, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Canberra declined to comment on the plane-spotting reports but said they would keep us posted on Brat’s arrival. Which we would guess means Trump’s new eyes and ears in Canberra have not yet landed in the capital.
There has been no US ambassador in Canberra since late 2024, following the departure of Caroline Kennedy, the only living child of the late US president John F. Kennedy. Kennedy arrived in Australia in 2021 as a star in her own right. Brat, meanwhile, will take the job as a relative unknown.
Brat is a former economics professor who, according to RateMyProfessor.com, was branded “hot” by one student and as “eye candy” by another, if lacking a little in focus. He’s been described as “the Elizabeth Warren of the right” and at one point as having the potential to be “the next big rock-star Christian academic”.
But there isn’t much to be found on his interest in Australia, to the extent he has any. Here’s to hoping we don’t have to wait much longer to find out.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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