Running an Ozempic economy is fine, if you can stop gorging yourself

The trick, I’m told, with GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs like Ozempic, is to not just take the dose and let the drugs work on you. You’ve got to build good habits and exercise regularly, so the body doesn’t gnaw away at crucial muscle, compromising the metabolism and leaving the whole organism flabby and weak.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher are running an Ozempic economy, which is turning Australia into a dangerously depleted creature.

Jim likes to take a jab of temporary economic restraint to coincide with his pre-election economic and fiscal outlook. It’s a crash diet to fit into the “better economic management” mantle he dons at polling time. But he doesn’t use the opportunity to build good fiscal habits. Soon the effect wears off. Spending, only ever artificially suppressed, returns with a vengeance. You might not immediately see the bulge in the mirror – the government does its level best to dress to conceal it – but the number on the inflation scale never lies.

In raising rates this week, the Reserve Bank of Australia blamed “aggregate demand” and refused to differentiate between the kilojoules ingested for basic bodily functions and those which constitute indulgence. But productivity isn’t going up – we’re not building muscle. We’re just getting fat, which tells you everything you need to know.

Ahead of the May budget, the government is becoming uncomfortable in its clothes. Yet it’s still lying to itself – and more importantly to us – about the flab the nation has been stacking on. The Australia Financial Review has reported that figures released in December show a $57 billion deterioration in the federal government’s budget bottom line over the second half of the next decade, compared with forecasts made before last year’s federal election. That will add to the national debt if the extra spending is not matched by increased revenue. That’s a $57 billion “black hole” which has appeared between the May election and December last year.

These figures “suddenly appeared” in the mid financial year outlook, released on December 17, while the nation was in shock over the Bondi terror attack. The all-consuming tragedy of that moment explains why the media is only starting to talk about the substantial discrepancy now.

The figure reported in the AFR is “overwhelmingly due to higher planned spending by the Albanese government”. Questioned on Sky News, Chalmers’ first plan was to downplay it. “The forecasts are broadly in line with what we saw in the 2025 pre‑election outlook,” he told Kieran Gilbert. If you go up a dress size over half a year, you might be broadly in line with the size you were before, but you still don’t fit into the jeans you only recently purchased.

The government has been gorging itself on spending promises with low nutritional value – the sort of sugar hits that win elections – while trying to blame Australians who work hard and spend their own money for the blowout.

In an uncharacteristically poor tactical decision, Labor’s campaign guru and architect of both of Albanese’s election wins, Paul Erickson, allowed himself to be interviewed for a profile which was published the weekend before the interest rate rise. In it, he is identified as being heavily involved in developing vote-buying policies that put political appeal over genuine care for the wellbeing of Australians.

In the last election, these included the so-called expansion of Medicare bulk-billing, the 20 per cent discount on HECS and HELP education loans, and extending a 5 per cent home deposit scheme to all first home buyers. These policies are appealing to voters who don’t realise that the Medicare expansion does more for doctor’s wages than it does to make more fee-free appointments, the student debt reduction is a regressive transfer from taxpayers who didn’t go to university to those who did, and the 5 per cent deposit scheme has mainly benefited home buyers who were already in a position to buy, while pushing up the price of first-home tier properties. In short, public money was spent recklessly with the aim of benefiting a political party, rather than the public.

And then there is the NDIS. The cost of the program keeps increasing and the original mission – which was to help Australians with a significant and permanent disability participate in the community and the workforce – is long forgotten. Just about every Australian knows someone who has been charged an above-market rate for a service or piece of equipment because it was paid for through the NDIS. Vast amounts of public money are being pocketed by a giant NDIS provider industry clipping the ticket without adding to productivity.

Most economists are pointing to these government programs as the source of the economic waddle. Still, the government continues to deny the weight it’s put on. Katy Gallagher has been hitting the airwaves to spin the line that the government has “found $114 billion in savings across a number of our budgets”.

A young reporter at The Australian Financial Review who was previously a policy analyst at Treasury (and really deserves a pay rise, if his editors are reading this) provided a forensic dissection of this claim: “The decisions increased spending by $142.1 billion, which is partly offset by $30.8 billion more in taxes, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. Labor has not saved $114 billion; it has spent $111.3 billion – off by $225 billion.”

Rather than acknowledge that it’s time for less junk policy, Chalmers is now testing an idea to raise more tax from citizens. Of course, it’s packaged as an equity measure, but by now it should be obvious it’s the fiscal equivalent of pulling out the elasticised sweatpants.

As the treasurer prepares for the budget in May, he’ll predictably reach for the economic Ozempic again. From past experience, Australians should be highly sceptical of any temporary slimming and look out for off-budget spending.

TV talk show host and famous yo-yo dieter Oprah Winfrey recently declared she’d had an epiphany after taking Ozempic: obesity causes overeating, she reckons, not the reverse. Australia’s government is now obese and our vote-hungry politicians crave larger and larger portions.

Parnell Palme McGuinness is an independent insights and advocacy strategist.

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