Arabic version: تشالمرز يدافع عن لجنة الإنتاجية بعد إساءة كوك

According to The Guardian, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Western Australian premier Roger Cook’s insults directed at the independent Productivity Commission were inappropriate, defending the people working at the federal government’s top economic advisory body.

Cook had described the commission as “east coast clowns” after it released a scathing interim report into the Morrison government’s 2018 GST deal. The deal has delivered tens of billions of extra taxpayer dollars to Western Australia, described as the country’s richest state.

Chalmers said people could contest the commission’s conclusions without denigrating it. “I think it’s important that, even when those conclusions are contested, as they often will be, that we continue to respect the people of the PC and the really important work that they do,” he told journalists.

The comments followed a defence of the commission by leading officials over the previous 24 hours. Chalmers also defended Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had already ruled out changes for as long as he remains prime minister, before the commission’s final report.

Albanese had described commission officials as “economic rationalists” the previous day. Chalmers said he did not consider the prime minister’s remarks inappropriate, but said some other commentary surrounding the interim report had been unfortunate.