Jim Chalmers is a man stuck in an endless loop.

Time and again in his four and a half years as treasurer, he has had to front up after bad news and spin the unspinnable.

His scorecard, across 41 post-rates press conferences: 17 hikes, 21 holds, three cuts.

That's an awful lot of times to reach for the same, gloomy script.

And the talking points are becoming gratingly familiar.

We know you're doing it tough.

We're trying to help in a responsible way.

Oh, and this isn't our fault.

Not that there's anything wrong with repetition.

Politics works on the "vomit principle": to make sure your message is heard, you need to say it over and over again until it makes you want to vomit.

But after nearly five years of high inflation and high interest rates, the treasurer and his colleagues are at risk of triggering the wrong kind of nausea.

Their challenge now is to find something fresh to stay.

The squeeze That is difficult when the economic story hasn't changed much.

The entire tenure of the Albanese government has taken place in a state of suspended animation, as it grapples with both the dual pain of the inflation disease and the harsh medicine of interest rates.

There is little room to manoeuvre.

The billions spent on short-term cost-of-living help have done little to ease the anger of struggling voters, while opening the government up to opposition accusations that it is making the problem worse.

Ministers do not believe they could have done things any other way and are struggling to see what else they may cut from a federal budget heaving under the weight of long-term pressures in health, defence and social programs.

Meanwhile, the shocks keep coming.

In the first wave four years ago, the Ukraine war and a global supply crunch arrived at precisely the worst time for Australia and other countries who were still in economy-stimulating mode after the pandemic.

This time, the Middle East war has combined with a spectacularly ill-timed artificial intelligence investment boom, which may yield fruit in years to come if the optimists are to be believed, but which for now is mostly a capital-heavy cash splash.

On both occasions, one great big hammer blow from the universe has pushed up the level of demand in our economy just as another big hammer blow from....