The underlying treasurer
Jim Chalmers walks through a fiscal magic door.
Imagine you're the chief financial officer of a listed company a fortnight before June 30.
Your short-term incentive, and that of your chief executive's, are pegged to a profit number the business isn't going to hit. You don't lie. You've read the section about "misleading and deceptive conduct" in the Corporations Act: you like your house (and not the Big House); the missus likes Capri in July; and the kids like Niseko in January.
So what do you do? You deploy the word "underlying", of course. Underlying profit is statutory profit before the bad stuff, and the bad stuff is always a one-off, even when it recurs every year.
Jim Chalmers is that CFO. Except the treasurer's share register is every taxpayer in the country, his CEO is the prime minister, and his incentive isn't a holiday on the Amalfi Coast, it's a shot at a permanent sleepover at The Lodge.
