Who is Australia's best recent Federal Treasurer? (1 Viewer)

Who is Australia's best recent Federal Treasurer?

  • Paul Keating

    Votes: 6 35.3%
  • Peter Costello

    Votes: 7 41.2%
  • Wayne Swan

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Joe Hockey

    Votes: 1 5.9%

  • Total voters
    17

Sathius005

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Who is Australia's best recent Federal Treasurer?
A) Paul Keating
B) Peter Costello
C)Wayne Swan
D) Joe Hockey

Source: The Guardian

Only 5% of Australians nominate Joe Hockey as Australia’s best recent treasurer, including just 10% of Liberal voters – meaning he ranks last among the four treasurers polled.

The survey emerged as Labor targeted the treasurer with every one of its questions during parliamentary question time on Tuesday, using Hockey’s own various explanations and arguments as he has sought to sell his unpopular budget over the past three months.

Peter Costello topped the Essential Media poll, nominated as the best treasurer by 30% of respondents, including 54% of Liberal voters, followed by Paul Keating (23%, 12% of Liberal voters) and Wayne Swan (8%, 3% of Liberals). More than one in three (35%) said they “didn’t know” when asked who had been Australia’s best recent treasurer.

Despite the faltering budget sales pitch and the fact that much of the budget appears unlikely to pass the Senate, Tony Abbott insists the Coalition will demonstrate it is an “outstanding” reforming government.

Speaking at the launch of News Corp commentator Paul Kelly’s book Triumph and Demise, Abbott took issue with the author’s view that good government may have become impossible.

“There is no doubt that good government today is harder than ever before, in part, because of the 24/7 media cycle, which politicians inevitably need to feed,” Abbott said.

But he said it wasn’t the system that was the problem. Rather, “it is the people who, from time to time, inhabit it”. He said the mission of the government was “to demonstrate, through its action, ultimately through its record, that the last six years – the six years between 2007 and 2013 – is not the new normal; that it was in fact just a passing phase”.

Among the Hockey quotes thrown back at the treasurer during question time were his incorrect contention on the ABC’s Q&A program that a chronically ill patient would not pay the $7 GP co-payment (for most doctor’s visits the patient would pay), and his concession on the same program that the co-payment could be called a tax.

“It’s a payment,” Hockey said. “You can call it a tax … It comes out of a pocket. It comes out of someone’s pocket. A taxpayer’s pocket. You want to call it a tax, you can call it anything you want, you can call it a rabbit.”

Hockey now insists it is a “payment for service”.

Labor also harked back to Hockey’s statement in an interview on the ABC that “one of the things that quite astounds me is some people are screaming about a $7 co-payment … One packet of cigarettes costs $22. That gives you three visits to the doctor. You can spend just over $3 on a middy of beer, so that’s two middies of beer to go to the doctor. And is a parent really going to deny their sick child a visit to the doctor which would be the equivalent payment of a couple of beers or one-third of a packet of cigarettes?”

They also asked him about his statement that “the poorest people don’t have cars or don’t drive far in many cases” for which the treasurer subsequently apologised. Hockey said he had “dealt with that last week”. And they questioned whether the fuel tax was in fact a “progressive” tax, as Hockey contended, on the basis of total spending figures, rather than calculations of fuel spending as a proportion of household income, the usual measure of whether a tax is regressive or progressive.

The government has removed many budget policies from the list of bills to be debated in the Senate this week, because they appeared set to be voted down, and continues to negotiate with the Senate crossbenchers, without any apparent breakthroughs.

Labor insisted the government had no mandate for a budget “built on lies” and the Palmer United party confirmed it would vote against the $7 GP co-payment, meaning it will not pass the Senate based on the current positions of opposition parties.

According to the Essential poll the Coalition is on 48% of the two-party-preferred vote, with Labor on 52%.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Hockey was “an albatross around the neck of this government”.
 
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SylviaB

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Bill Shorten should be dying of shame for those ludicrous and completely inappropriate claims regarding our brilliant treasurer. The Honourable Joe Hockey MP is a gentleman and a scholar and is the finest treasurer in Australia's history.

Bill Shorten needs to understand that Australia will not tolerate his lies and slander any more. Time to hit the bricks pal.
 

Sathius005

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Bill Shorten should be dying of shame for those ludicrous and completely inappropriate claims regarding our brilliant treasurer. The Honourable Joe Hockey MP is a gentleman and a scholar and is the finest treasurer in Australia's history.

Bill Shorten needs to understand that Australia will not tolerate his lies and slander any more. Time to hit the bricks pal.
What a load of non sense. Joe Hockey is a man who has failed the people of Australia. Governments are elected to improve things but here is a government that has gone massively backwards with the debt ceiling being increased. The LNP is big on talk but low on delivery. The Liberals are trash talking the strength of the Australian economy. There is no budget emergency in Australia just a task of managing the transition of the end of minerals resources boom which has kept the Australia strong.
 
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SylviaB

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What a load of non sense. Joe Hockey is a man who has failed the people of Australia. Governments are elected to improve things but here is a government that has gone massively backwards with the debt ceiling being increased. The LNP is big on talk but low on delivery. The Liberals are trash talking the strength of the Australian economy. There is no budget emergency in Australia just a task of managing the transition of the end of minerals resources boom which has kept the Australia strong.
You should be dying of shame for being so ignorant. The people of bos are sick of your pathetic lies. Time to hit the bricks pal.
 

Sathius005

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You should be dying of shame for being so ignorant. The people of bos are sick of your pathetic lies. Time to hit the bricks pal.
Sylvia B is circumnavigating the world of irrelevance. Out out foul spot. Out out foul spot but she said it and will be judged by it. What kind of grubs do we have called Sylvia B? Joe Hockey is arguably Australia's worst Treasurer in modern memory. Sylvia B is like dog shit on the boot of democracy.
 
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SylviaB

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You're circumnavigating the fact that you should be dying of shame for being a hateful idiot and for defrauding the taxpayer of this great nation.
 

Axio

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Remember that time when Wayne Swan was treasurer and 4 people died because of a budget policy... I haven't seen any LNP Treasurers kill anyone.
 

wannaspoon

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Remember that time when Wayne Swan was treasurer and 4 people died because of a budget policy... I haven't seen any LNP Treasurers kill anyone.
IKR, all I've seen is rising unemployment (especially youth unemployment); rising rates of homelessness; welfare reform that doesn't cater for these people who are being effected by unemployment, etc... top jerb!!!

cigars and scotch on a balcony all round...
 

Axio

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IKR, all I've seen is rising unemployment (especially youth unemployment); rising rates of homelessness; welfare reform that doesn't cater for these people who are being effected by unemployment, etc... top jerb!!!

cigars and scotch on a balcony all round...
Solution to rising unemployment: get a job
Solution to rising rates of homelessness: get a job
Solution to welfare issues with the unemployed: get a job

Simples *meerkat noise*
 

wannaspoon

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Solution to rising unemployment: get a job
Solution to rising rates of homelessness: get a job
Solution to welfare issues with the unemployed: get a job

Simples *meerkat noise*
Do you even have a job???
 

jdennis

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It has to be Keating. Without his reforms in relation to reducing and removing tariffs, and floating of the dollar, Australia would not have experienced the vast improvement in competitiveness and economic conditions that we have seen over the last few decades.

Costello was responsible for managing an economy which was taking care of itself. Not to mention the fact that the IMF rated him as Australia's only profligate spending treasurer in recent times. Not even Swan got that award. It was Costello who cut taxes and introduced family tax benefits which are now causing the structural problems in the budget... which are being blamed on Labor (Liberal logic).

While Swan got us out of the GFC, the spending programs were poorly targeted and did not contribute to Australia's future productivity. I agree with his decision to spend as much as he did but it could have been better directed.

And Hockey... well he can't go a week without insulting some disadvantaged group, can't put a budget together that doesn't unfairly target the poor, young, homeless, unemployed, sick and elderly, and insists on blaming Labor for all his woes a whole year after the election.
 

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ughhh why the fuck is Hoe Jockey even in the options *sigh*
 

enigma_1

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It's almost like everyone has a short-term memory and forgot Labour was in government not too long ago.
That's what the politicians do. They play with our long term me ory and make it short
 

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