By Max Aitchison and Will Glasgow
As a man who has delivered (and dealt with the aftermath) of no fewer than five federal budgets, Dr Jim Chalmers likely has a skin thicker than a rhino’s hide.
There can’t be many names under the sun that the Paul Keating expert hasn’t been called.
So Margin Call was somewhat surprised to hear that Dr Chalmers’ LinkedIn account had allegedly prevented one particularly critical fund manager from tagging him in their posts.
Wilson Asset Management chief financial officer Jesse Hamilton seemingly found himself in just that position on Thursday morning. So he did what any Karen would do and asked to speak to the manager.
“Anthony Albanese, I think Jim has stopped me being able to tag him?” Hamilton posted on the social media platform. “Could you let him know I’m still just trying to understand how taking more tax from Australians and keeping it somehow qualifies as helping them get ahead? (maybe slide a note under his door).”
When this column caught up with Hamilton, he said he’d tagged the Treasurer in a post on Thursday evening which criticised his claims about fairness in the budget. He’d finished it off with a lemon emoji – as in big Jim’s a lemon. Fairly tame, schoolyard stuff.
But on Thursday morning Hamilton said he tried to tag the Treasurer again on several occasions, but was unable to. He could still see his page, though.
“I’d also be sensitive to criticism if I’d made their decisions,” Hamilton told Margin Call, the suggestion being that the Treasurer – or more likely someone in his team – was stung by his various LinkedIn lashings.
We, of course, made inquiries with the Treasurer’s office. They assured us that no one in his team made any changes to his LinkedIn settings whatsoever. Shortly after that conversation, Hamilton was able to tag Chalmers again.
So what gives? Is it nothing more than a LinkedIn delusion? Or have we got first-hand evidence exposing thin-skinned Jim?
“This (latter suggestion) is completely wrong,” came the official response from the Treasurer’s office later on Thursday afternoon.
And in this instance, the Treasurer’s team is right. LinkedIn confirmed that there isn’t a feature that lets one account stop another one from tagging them, while leaving mentions on for everyone else. Good that we could clear that up.
The context to all this is that Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson (worth $900m according to The Australian’s latest Richest 250) has declared war on the Labor administration over its plans to ditch the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount. The almost-billionaire has not been shy about taking potshots at the government.
And Dr Chalmers would be a fool to not keep one eye on his fulminations, given the famous fund manager helped torpedo Bill Shorten’s 2019 proposal to abolish cash refunds for excess franking credits.
But Wilson is going to have to do better than dealing in LinkedIn conspiracies.
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