Barnaby Joyce is now the One Nation Treasury spokesperson, which serves as a lovely reminder of his triumphant 15 weeks as shadow spokesperson for finance and debt reduction from December 2009 to March 2010. A period during which he went to the National Press Club and confused millions with billions, and talked about “net gross public and private debt” which … is not a thing.

But with Pauline Hanson too busy swanning around in the UK meeting with far-right convicted criminals to care about her own constituents, someone has to talk about things that might affect Australians.

His start has not been great.

He suggested the Reserve Bank of Australia should have the power to call for spending and regulatory cuts. This, he argues, would make the RBA more independent. It wouldn’t. It would make it more political. It would also give power over government spending to unelected officials in the RBA.

Call me crazy but I like people accountable to the public to be the ones who decide how to spend public funds.

It would also lead to governments appointing political hacks to head the RBA to ensure they agree with what the government is doing. That would not be a good outcome.

But while it is tempting (and generally sensible) to dismiss all One Nation policies out of hand, they do have a couple of economic propositions that deserve debate.

The idea of a people’s bank is not an original one, which is probably why it is not a bad one. Back in 2009, six pretty high-level economists recommended the creation of a people’s bank in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

It has also been the Greens’ policy for a........

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