Mark Riley: Why Jim Chalmers should listen to tax dodger Jimmy Carr

If Treasurer Jim Chalmers is looking for a diversion from the heat and fury of politics when Parliament resumes on Monday, he could always wander down the hill to Canberra’s National Convention Centre. The risqué British comedian Jimmy Carr will be performing his one-man show there. Carr’s brand of humour is what we used to call “politically incorrect”. These days it is the sort of thing that gets people cancelled. Somehow — and thankfully might I add — it hasn’t happened to Carr. Perhaps it is because the basis for much of what he mocks so mercilessly is true. It’s just that people don’t like to admit it. At least not in polite company. Chalmers would certainly get a laugh, but he might also be challenged by the comedian’s views on taxation. And Carr is a person with quite a chequered history on tax. He says he has reformed his ways since being exposed in 2012 for exploiting a tax-minimisation scheme to pay just 1 per cent on income of about A$6 million a year. Former UK prime minister David Cameron called that scheme “morally wrong”, something a repentant Carr now concedes. But the comedian and TV host still thinks young people are paying way too much tax. In recent podcast appearances he has suggested a radical solution to the generational inequality within tax systems. He says no one under 30 should pay any income tax at all. That would allow young people to set themselves up in their formative years by accumulating the wealth they’ll need to buy a house, marry and have children. It would also encourage many to bypass university and go straight into trades, thereby filling gaps in labour-starved industries such as construction. But there is a flip side. Older workers would necessarily have to pay more tax to compensate for the lost government income. Policy makers would say Carr is having a laugh. His plan wouldn’t solve inequality. It would simply redirect it towards those aged between 30 and 60, who would be lumbered with a crippling tax burden. But, like the best comedic bits, Carr’s suggestion has some real-life poignancy. Young Australians believe the tax system — and much else about modern democracy — is loaded against them. Rents are high, junior wages are low and the cost of everything else seems to be going inexorably higher. The dream of home ownership among the young is now more distant than ever. Chalmers would argue that the Government is well aware of this growing sense of despondency among younger Australians and has been providing policy solutions. He and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese regularly rattle them off at their news conferences: fee-free TAFE, HECS debt relief, student rental assistance, first homebuyers incentives and free health care. They also evidence the realignment of the stage three tax cuts as an obvious example of the Government addressing the generational inequality that Carr only half jokes about. Those changes redirected tax benefits from the top of the income scales to the lower rungs, where younger Australians begin their working journeys. But 20-somethings still feel misunderstood and largely ignored by the political system. It is one of many challenges Chalmers and Cabinet’s Expenditure Review Committee face as they now prepare the 2026 Federal Budget. Budgets aren’t just books of numbers. They are also narratives outlining the Government’s principles and priorities. At a time when the Australian political landscape is undergoing a tectonic realignment, with support for the traditional conservative forces collapsing and One Nation on the rise, the Albanese Labor Government should not believe that it is in the clear. Particularly with young Australians. And this Budget should ensure its priorities are alive to their real needs. Millennials and generation Zs now represent the largest cohort in Australia’s voter population. A growing mountain of recent research says they feel under-valued, over-taxed and locked out of the property market. And while Jim Chalmers won’t be persuaded by Jimmy Carr’s pseudo-utopian suggestions, he might be wise to heed the warning of another famous comedian: Jerry Seinfeld. “Don’t be fooled by babies,” Seinfeld once warned. “They are here to replace us!” And so are young Australian voters. Mark Riley is the Seven Network’s political editor