POV: you’re Jim Chalmers using social media to sell the most ambitious budget of your life

Politicians still care about traditional media, but winning over people spending more of their lives online is the challenge for modern MPs

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He’s up before sunrise, pounding the pavement in a cap and running shorts. He’s still up late into the night, having slipped into a comfortable sweater while he checks figures in a darkened office by lamplight, fuelled by sugar-free Red Bull.

It’s “decision week”, Jim Chalmers declares of the annual federal budget in a video that pinged around political group chats this week. The treasurer was keen to take people behind the scenes on social media.