Department of the Treasury of Australia

The economist Leith Van Onselen is chief economist at MB Fund, MB Super, co-founder of Macro Business.

He's previously worked at the Australian Treasury, the Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

So he knows what he's talking about.

And his verdict is blunt.

Yeah, I think you might recall I once called Jim Chalmers... you know, channeling the Simpsons, the I didn't do it boy.

But he looks like he might be throwing that off after accepting his budget has contributed to the fall in house prices.

But at this stage, he's not saying Treasury got it wrong when it comes to what's happening to house prices.

Now, remember, Treasury said the house prices would fall by 2%.

The economist Leith Van Onselen is chief economist at MB Fund, MB Super, co-founder of Macro Business.

He's previously worked at the Australian Treasury, the Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

So he knows what he's talking about.

And his verdict is blunt.

You don't need...

At the Australian Treasury, if you've got five people in the domestic economy division- And as the population grows, you don't need to add to that every year.

You still use the same number of people because they do the same analysis.

So we shouldn't be growing the bureaucracy faster across all these areas than the population.

You know, um, unfortunately, where you live and where I live, we, we share a lot of similarities with dumb governments, and we're both following each other down the pa- path of energy suicide as well, and our living standards are reflecting that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And just to reemphasize one thing, right? Treasury keeps saying more people equals more income to the economy, right? There was a report, I think, over the weekend talking about migration and the fact that, uh, you know, the migration debate is actually getting more and more difficult because there are so many reasons why you want to dial back migration.

But there are also Treasury excuses to say, "No, no, no, we need, we need more people because more people is proven to actually put more income into the economy over the long term rather than not." But the point that you've made, and I keep saying too, in real terms, it's squeezing real people.