Jim Chalmers attacks Josh Frydenberg for mocking him about yoga trends now

Jim Chalmers has slammed his predecessor Josh Frydenberg for mocking him about his embrace of yoga and Hindu spirituality as he laid out a vision to remake capitalism.

The Treasurer used a 6,000-word essay in The Monthly magazine to recall his former opponent's parliamentary sledge against him in February 2020 just before the start of the pandemic.

At the time, New Zealand's then first-term Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern was popular after announcing a 2019 'wellbeing' budget and the Australian Labor Party had wanted to embrace a similar concept, following three straight election defeats.

'When Labor spoke about a wellbeing budget; the then federal Treasurer guffawed in Question Time about yoga mats and incense,' Dr Chalmers said.

'Not only did he miss the preponderance of yoga studios in his own electorate or misread the fast-growing South Asian faith communities around Australia, he misunderstood people's appetite for a more conscious sense of wellbeing. 

'He missed perhaps the key lesson of the pandemic: that healthy economies rely on healthy people and communities.'

Mr Frydenberg outraged some Hindu community leaders at the time for mocking Dr Chalmers, who holds the safe Labor electorate of Rankin, covering southern Brisbane and Logan.

'I was thinking yesterday, as the member for Rankin, [came] into the chamber fresh from his Ashram deep in the mountains of the Himalayas … barefoot into the chamber, robes flowing, incense burning, beads in one hand, wellbeing budget in the other,' Mr Frydenberg said in 2020.

'I thought to myself [what] yoga position the member for Rankin would assume … to deliver the first wellbeing budget?'

Mr Frydenberg went on to lose his Liberal blue ribbon inner-Melbourne seat of Kooyong at the May 2022 election while Dr Chalmers has publicly worn his Hindu spiritually on his sleeve.

The Treasurer, who was raised Catholic, last week wore five wristbands.

Four are nadachadis, which in Hindu religion are considered 'sacred' threads which are usually blessed and tied for protection in prayer.

The nadachadis come from his local Baps Swaminarayan Temple at Kingston, in his electorate.

The fifth, a dark pink band which sits between two pairs of nadichadis is one of his daughter Annabel's hairbands.

Dr Chalmers also used his essay in The Monthly - titled Capitalism After The Crises - to hint at more government intervention into the economy, repudiating the 'Washington Consensus' formula of 'more market, not less'.

'This school of thought assumed that markets would typically self-correct before disaster struck,' he said.