Now, as most of the economists at the Australia Institute know, I tend to treat economists like a packet of Arnott’s Favourites – there are a couple of good ones, and wayyy too many orange creams (the worst of all the biscuits). And just like Orange Creams, the neo-liberal economists tend to stink up the whole place with their neo-liberal views and every economist smells a little like Orange Cream, even when they’re at the other end of the packet.

And that’s kinda what has happened here.

But the problem is, economists (even the annoying ones) do know what they are talking about on certain issues. So by politicians attacking economists for populist reasons, then it just contributes to the undermining of experts, which isn’t a great thing overall.

So criticise economists – Dolly knows I do it on a daily basis – they don’t have all the answers and a lot of the time they are so blinded by their own ideologies and the economic school they favour, they can’t actually see when they have absolutely no idea about what’s actually happening in the real world (profit gouging anyone?) Economics is a social science. But criticise them for the right reasons.