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Poll closed Poll
Question: who is our worst–ever Treasurer from the 1980s on?>
*** This poll has now closed ***


Howard    
  7 (21.2%)
Keating    
  1 (3.0%)
Costello    
  1 (3.0%)
Swan    
  6 (18.2%)
Hockey    
  18 (54.5%)




Total votes: 33
« Created by: St George of the Garden on: Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:46am »

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Our worst ever living treasurer? (Read 9112 times)
St George of the Garden
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Our worst ever living treasurer?
Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:24am
 
Howard—trifecta of double digit interest rates, inflation and unemployment

Keating—fixed up Howard’s huge mess, modernised the economy, the 90s recession

Costello—fed a real estate boom, spent it all on tax cuts (apart from what Howard spent on pork) IMHO Costello ranks up there with Howard as worst ever. Robbed education, health and infrastructure budgets to boost the surpluses. None of the boom time revenue was used for any constructive purpose!

Swan—coped brilliantly with the GFC, cut out lots of Howard’s irresponsible, reckless spending. Should have raised the income tax and cut the tax expenditures

Hockey—first Budget in tatters, went on holiday when he should have been selling the Budget. Doubled, at least, the deficit.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #1 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:35am
 
IMO, it's a two-horse race between Howard and Hockey.

Howard was leading, but Hockey is making up ground rapidly.

Neither are/were fit to compare themselves with either Keating or Swan.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #2 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:40am
 
Costello - paid off Keatings' $96bn debt, 99% of his budgets were in surplus, left office with billions in the bank.

Swan - inherited a considerable surplus, oversaw wasteful spending and irresponsible borrowing, instituted debt ceiling and then raised it three times, tripled tax-free threshold and gouged a huge hole in budget, sent stimulus cheques to dead people with borrowed money, not a single surplus but the biggest deficits in history.

Hockey - made some unpopular choices and possibly gone too far on some BUT inherited a colossal mess from his hopelessly incompetent Labor predecessor, only his first budget.

Out of the three most recent Treasurers, Swan is far and away the worst (and probably the worst of all our Treasurers since Federation) while Costello is easily the best we've had. Hockey has only had the job for a year and inherited a mess. Got to give him time to fix Labors mess and start instituting the Coalition's policy agenda.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #3 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:43am
 
Kat wrote on Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:35am:
IMO, it's a two-horse race between Howard and Hockey.

Howard was leading, but Hockey is making up ground rapidly.

Neither are/were fit to compare themselves with either Keating or Swan.


Granted, Howard wasn't much of a Treasurer but he was an incredibly successful PM.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #4 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:44am
 
Why is Costello the best? Fanned a real estate boom and spent the money on tax cuts. Boom ended, tax cuts continue, result—debt and deficit.

To that can be added—the spending Costello encouraged and fed with tax cuts left the private sector massively indebted. Even now with sustained record low interest rates—private credit growth is sluggish.

No, Costello did massive harm, along with Howard PM, and that is still cruelling Budgets and a recovery from the GFC.
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« Last Edit: Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:29am by St George of the Garden »  

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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #5 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:46am
 
Poll added.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #6 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:51am
 
Howard was a crap Treasurer and a worse PM. Divisive, cautious, fanned race hatred, helped waste the once in a century boom time revenue.

We went to war on a lie, there were no WMDs, as even a careful reader of newspapers would have known. Nothing good about Howard.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #7 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:54am
 
St George of the Garden wrote on Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:44am:
Why is Costello the best? Fanned a real estate boom and spent the money on tax cuts. Boom ended, tax cuts continue, result—debt and deficit.

To that can be added—the spending Costello encouraged and fed with tax cuts left the private sector massively indebted. Even now with sustained record low interest rates—private credit growth is sluggish.

No, Costello did massive harm, along with Howard PM, and that is still cruelling Budgets and a recovery from the GST.


God forbid he should help home owners and investors make a profit on their property! As for tax cuts, he instituted those at a time when he was able to do so financially - when the debt was either paid off or being paid off. The point is, he had the money to do it, unlike Swan, who tripled the tax-free threshold when the debt was climbing toward $300bn. Only an imbecile would leave a previous governments' tax cuts in place when he saw changes in the economy locally and globally. If they were such a bad thing, why didn't Swan do something about them? He had ample time and the ALP could easily have pushed through anything they wanted to. The answer is he is incompetent and wet his pants when the GFC hit. Simple as that.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #8 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:01am
 
George, how is it even possible to make comparisons given vastly different circumstances across all time frames. So far, it seems that the gong is set to go to either Howard or Swan. There can't be any dispute that this pair also suffered the worst of global performances during their respective tenures and in one case, working under a PM that didn't put a high priority on macro reforms.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #9 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:04am
 
I said real estate boom.

Costello has left us with unaffordable tax rates and a private sector too indebted to borrow to build new houses or start a business and the like.

You can see the recession that Costello’s economic mismanagement and the shamble’s hamfisted attempt to manage the economy and reduce the deficit (actually—they reduced revenue and increased spending) by the growing number of shops, offices, warehouses vacant for months.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #10 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:13am
 
crocodile wrote on Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:01am:
George, how is it even possible to make comparisons given vastly different circumstances across all time frames. So far, it seems that the gong is set to go to either Howard or Swan. There can't be any dispute that this pair also suffered the worst of global performances during their respective tenures and in one case, working under a PM that didn't put a high priority on macro reforms.

You judge by how well each Treasurer managed in the conditions he faced at the time.

Howard stuffed up big time, huge inflation. He put up no Cabinet submissions for reform—Fraser challenged him to produce any submissions, the rhodent put up: ZERO

Swan managed the GFC brilliantly, no one can deny that. He also manfully attacked the Howard spending in the Budget, means testing the useless Health Care Rebate and the like. Could he have been bolder? Difficult to say but the minority Gillard/Swan govt did get major reforms through, maybe he could have made much bigger cuts to FBT, tax expenditures, etc. Lower than expected revenues bedevilled his Budgets, he should have gone for the low hanging fruit that are the tax expenditures.

I feel he also should have increased the GST and broadened the base—the extra money from broadening the base would have gone to the states, the extra 5% revenue to the commonwealth. To do it right—overcompensate those on lower incomes, phase compensation out at say $100K pa.

To armpit—I have already stated the tripling of the tax free threshold was a needed reform and was paid for by the carbon price.

Costello is one of the very worst Treasurers. flogged off most of the family silver at firesale prices and acted like the boom was going to last forever. A real Treasurer would know booms don’t last forever and acted with an eye to the future.

An indication of how crap a Treasurer Costello was: nobody wanted to employ him in the high paying job he felt he was entitled to. A company CEO who paid out all the record profits in dividends without socking some away, without investing money into expanding and improving the company would get the sack.
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« Last Edit: Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:20am by St George of the Garden »  

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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #11 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:49am
 
St George of the Garden wrote on Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:24am:
Howard—trifecta of double digit interest rates, inflation and unemployment


.......unchartered economic waters and rampant (cost) inflation 'fueled' by OPEC'S disgraceful anticompetitive oil Cartel and the unpresendented and irresponsible welfare state created by Whitlam

Also (ironically) the factor in the RB (erroneously) increasing rates during Howard's election campaign in 2007 and well into 2008 with the GFC on the horizon.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #12 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:59am
 
Quote:
Howard stuffed up big time, huge inflation. He put up no Cabinet submissions for reform—Fraser challenged him to produce any submissions, the rhodent put up: ZERO


George, that's blatantly untrue. The high unemployment and inflation was endemic across the entire developed economies. The stagflation of the '70s and early '80s was not something that Howard could mend in isolation.

Howard in fact instigated the Campbell report in '81 which formed the initial groundwork that the Hawke government built on and implemented. It was Fraser with his affection for Friedman and his monetarist theories that prevented Howard from taking any further action.

Quote:
Swan managed the GFC brilliantly, no one can deny that. He also manfully attacked the Howard spending in the Budget, means testing the useless Health Care Rebate and the like. Could he have been bolder? Difficult to say but the minority Gillard/Swan govt did get major reforms through, maybe he could have made much bigger cuts to FBT, tax expenditures, etc. Lower than expected revenues bedevilled his Budgets, he should have gone for the low hanging fruit that are the tax expenditures.


I don't really get all the Swan hate either. No doubt he made mistakes but also had poor treasury forecasts to deal with as well as falling revenues. Must have thought he'd killed a chinaman.
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #13 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 10:22am
 
Swagman wrote on Sep 30th, 2014 at 9:49am:
St George of the Garden wrote on Sep 30th, 2014 at 8:24am:
Howard—trifecta of double digit interest rates, inflation and unemployment


.......unchartered economic waters and rampant (cost) inflation 'fueled' by OPEC'S disgraceful anticompetitive oil Cartel and the unpresendented and irresponsible welfare state created by Whitlam

Also (ironically) the factor in the RB (erroneously) increasing rates during Howard's election campaign in 2007 and well into 2008 with the GFC on the horizon.


The OPEC price hikes need a bit of historical perspective. The roots of this action can be traced back to the buildup of global inflation right through the '60s and early seventies. Inflation was a direct result of the US government printing money to fund the Vietnam war effort. This was counter to the Breton-Woods agreement where all major economies agreed to hinge their currencies to the gold standard.

Once inflation began to take off it didn't need a genius to work out that the US currency was grossly overvalued. When other governments took the US at it's word to convert US foreign reserves to gold at call it was soon discovered that the US treasury held gold reserves that only matched 22% of it's currency face value.

Nixon's reaction was to cut the US from the Breton-Woods agreement meaning currencies were effectively floated. It didn't take the Arabs too long to work out that the payments they were receiving in US dollars were a ripoff. They decided to claw back their revenue by tripling the price of oil.

So began the period of stagflation. The widely held belief in the Phillips Curve was shattered and economists had no historical data to work out how to repair the system.

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Very funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes.
 
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Re: Our worst ever living treasurer?
Reply #14 - Sep 30th, 2014 at 10:27am
 
Calling for a report is easy. Doubt Howard ever read the Wallis enquiry report.

Keating could get the reforms through, Howard didn’t even try. Did NOT even try!

Neither Howard not Costello did ANYTHING useful with their record revenue, they pissed $350Bn away against the wall. That is the only conclusion you can come to and that is why Costello, who had the easiest time of all the five Treasurers, is easily the worst.

And H&C didn’t save anything, all their surpluses got spent on tax cuts and pork.
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