When searching for words to describe this federal government I eventually landed on Yiddish, the language of Eastern European Jews—now particularly associated with New York’s Jewish community—and one of the most expressive in the world.
Chutzpah is defined as “gall, supreme nerve, or brazen self-confidence”. How better to characterise the Treasurer’s insistence—in the face of centuries of economic evidence—that the government’s excessive spending has no inflationary effect? Or that his changes to Capital Gains Tax arrangements will not drive innovative start-ups offshore.
Then there’s the Immigration and Citizenship Minister who oversees a program whereby hundreds of thousands enter the country on student visas only to ride around on e-Bikes delivering food. As the government knows this is going on, it is actually complicit in the rorting of its own program. And the government can then point to slight increases in headline GDP while per capita GDP—the real measure of growth—declines. Now that’s chutzpah.
(Another, homegrown expression conveys a similar meaning. “More front than Myer’s” is of course a reference to the department store frontage that stretches for hundreds of metres along no fewer than 56 locations in Australia. Founded by Sidney Myer, a penniless Jewish immigrant from present day Belarus, the company he built testifies to a better time in Australia, when entrepreneurship was rewarded and celebrated rather than taxed and regulated to death.)
While the noun schlemiel, Yiddish for bungler or dolt, could be applied to most of the federal cabinet it is perhaps most applicable to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, who remains hellbent on destroying the Australian economy, and stripping us of energy security in the process, while making no difference whatsoever to the temperature of the planet.
Gantse knacker, is Yiddish slang for a real big shot, someone who considers himself an important authority figure. Our prime minister perhaps? And how does he wield this authority? By resisting to the bitter end the establishment of a Royal Commission following the murder of 15 Australians celebrating Chanukah at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025 because he feared it would expose the virulent strain of antisemitism that runs through the hard left of his party.
To schmooze, from the Yiddish schmues, means to lay it on thick in an attempt to gain advantage, something the PM tried ad nauseum after Labor brought down its spectacularly unpopular Budget in May. But you have to admire his chutzpah: defending his government’s changes to negative gearing he said, quite emotionally, young people were “missing out” at auctions because they were bidding against investors who had the “Australian taxpayer on their side”. These are presumably the same taxpayers who stood alongside him when he purchased his several properties, the latest being his $4.3 million clifftop home with sweeping ocean views. Hardly kosher is it?
This article from the Winter 2026 edition of the IPA Review is written by IPA Communications Manager Michael Barrett.
