tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post8302406898253353201..comments2024-03-08T06:18:28.125+11:00Comments on Bronte Capital: Joe Hockey as MiniRAT. Thoughts on his departureJohn Hemptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-6527924624253380962015-12-05T15:37:58.100+11:002015-12-05T15:37:58.100+11:00Timing is everything in Politics and for Joe the t...Timing is everything in Politics and for Joe the timing was all wrong. Laborites will tell you Wayne Swan was a good treasurer but he was no better. Having Abbott as the main man was never going to work he was a huge disappointment for right leaning voters and was absolutely despised by the over represented lefties in the Australian media. No Hockey was on the wrong bus but don't feel sorry for him as his nose is well and truly in the trough. Take no notice of the Frans of this world just left wing diatribe not even worthy of a second read. Hockey was not buried by the portfolio he was buried by a man who had wanted to be PM since very early days and quite simply was unpopular.<br />Marcus Duquesnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05749234412437605645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-30841887732751475382015-09-24T23:01:27.600+10:002015-09-24T23:01:27.600+10:00Abbott and the Coalition went to the election with...Abbott and the Coalition went to the election with an economic platform of contradictions that was impossible to achieve and thus made the Treasurer's job doomed for failure. It was impossible to achieve a lower deficit, no cuts in spending, and no higher taxes all at once.<br /><br />Hockey put so much emphasis on lowering the deficit during the election campaign that he looked hypocritical and ineffectual when resource prices fell, along with government revenue.<br /><br />Be really interested in what you think of Turnbull.Adrian Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-66735630406328610082015-09-24T18:36:12.870+10:002015-09-24T18:36:12.870+10:00He presided over increasing the Australian propert...He presided over increasing the Australian property bubble to possibly equal the largest in the world. Property is now 3.8 times GDP equal to Japan in 1989. <br /><br />He may have had the IQ back in the day, but he certainly doesn't have the rationality to see he put Australia in one of the worst positions in its history. Although the Labor government did give him a hospital pass.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-2476626887575967602015-09-23T16:10:02.619+10:002015-09-23T16:10:02.619+10:00Labor it seemed changed the title back to Minister...Labor it seemed changed the title back to Minister for Financial Services and Assistant Treasurer. I guess Nick Sherry did not want to be officially the MiniRAT.<br /><br />JJohn Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-75166360609717277132015-09-23T16:08:26.329+10:002015-09-23T16:08:26.329+10:00According to Wikipedia Helen Coonan was the first ...According to Wikipedia Helen Coonan was the first MiniRAT - but I remember the term being used before that.<br /><br />JJohn Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-37944868049375245802015-09-23T16:06:49.203+10:002015-09-23T16:06:49.203+10:00Coonan succeeded Hockey - and the title of the job...Coonan succeeded Hockey - and the title of the job changed sometime in the Hockey era. If not officially then unofficially because I knew him as the MiniRAT. <br /><br />It was certainly the official title by the time Coonan was around.John Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-72429526080890995442015-09-23T16:05:57.828+10:002015-09-23T16:05:57.828+10:00By 2001 (by which time I had left Treasury) the of...By 2001 (by which time I had left Treasury) the official title was Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer. It was held by Helen Coonan<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Coonan<br /><br />Famously she ordered that under no circumstances was she to be called the MiniRAT. <br /><br />After that nobody called her anything else.<br /><br /><br />JJohn Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-64574205121811379182015-09-23T16:03:48.285+10:002015-09-23T16:03:48.285+10:00Actually it is on his Wikipedia page... so I am no...Actually it is on his Wikipedia page... so I am not misremembering.<br /><br />"He was awarded the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation portfolio from 1998–2001".<br /><br />He just was not called the MiniRat then - but it was the equivalent position.John Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-16790078039987796202015-09-23T16:02:41.271+10:002015-09-23T16:02:41.271+10:00It was the late 1990s. Early period of Howard Gove...It was the late 1990s. Early period of Howard Government. Funny - not on his Wiki page - but I remember very clearly briefing him. John Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-50386798666736327152015-09-22T13:29:44.132+10:002015-09-22T13:29:44.132+10:00What year was this, John?
I know a thing or two ...What year was this, John? <br /><br />I know a thing or two about his time at the treasury and hadn't heard of this. <br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasurer_of_Australia<br /><br />When was he Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer?mprhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12899342377358226562noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-37612537874403309322015-09-22T06:33:48.083+10:002015-09-22T06:33:48.083+10:00People with experience of people say the most inte...People with experience of people say the most interesting things. I was reading a book by a Blair apparatchik recently; most of it was awful and then he suddenly remarked on a merit of Berlusconi: the man kept his word. You could read a million words of journalism and not be told that.deariemenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-81238883772839767872015-09-21T21:58:44.098+10:002015-09-21T21:58:44.098+10:00I'm just going to take him at face value.
Hoc...I'm just going to take him at face value.<br /><br />Hockey's legacy will be that he targeted the poor, while preserving functionally useless entitlements for the well off in a time of unprecedented boom.<br /><br />His "age of entitlement" will continue with a pork stuffed US ambassadorial role - joining the illustrious company of ex-politicians like Tim Fischer, whose ambassadorial appointment to the Vatican didn't exist before it was created especially for him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-47566769821879411732015-09-21T17:01:57.492+10:002015-09-21T17:01:57.492+10:00He came across as an idiot.
My favourite 'Hoc...He came across as an idiot.<br /><br />My favourite 'Hockey Moment': when he justified Australia's nose bleed high housing costs [95% or > driven by land prices] by stating to a US female interviewer that 'We have a very high standard of residential housing stock in Australia', i.e., our housing is so expensive because the build quality is so high.<br /><br />Harry Trubigoff, come on down!!CrocodileChuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762442097044797842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-74923982518903708932015-09-21T16:57:49.463+10:002015-09-21T16:57:49.463+10:00The cigar was never a look that inspired confidenc...The cigar was never a look that inspired confidence.Richard Oakeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02750516718884409484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-40039501813602838642015-09-21T16:45:34.753+10:002015-09-21T16:45:34.753+10:00Nobody can really know what is in one's head, ...Nobody can really know what is in one's head, ir what another's mind us capable of save through performance. Moreover, as many have pointed out, 'intelligence' takes a number of forms, not all of it purely about reflecting on the nature of salient data, what is salient or even the interaction of these things with models. <br /><br />Some of it is cultural. It entails grasping your own possibility, the contribution you can make in the given constraints, whether that contribution is worthy or even maintainable. Joe offered no public vidence that he understood other people or even himself all that well, and in the end, *at best* he maladapted to a situation over which he had little influence and began an exercise designed purely to hide that reality from others, and in all likelihood to hide that from his consciousness merely so he could continue to play the role of treasurer. <br /><br />That takes extraordinary intellectual stamina and agility and very few people have that. Inevitably, people saw tgrough that and rightly blamed him for the consequenes of the paradigm he fontinued to prop up with his pathetic dissembling. Supporting a slogsn-based regime, he will ever be recalled for his own slogans and shibboleths -- 'lifters and leaners' , 'age of entitlement' 'poor peopke don 't drive cars' and his assertion that as long as people continued to buy housung it couldn 't be overpriced, and that peopke 'should get a good job that pays good money'. <br /><br />However 'smart' he was, based on his performance he was an untellectual and cultural mediocrity with an abrasive and arrogant public manner stumbling between inanities and cant. His voive on the radio -- full of faux populism -- merely grated because behind it stood a regime that meant to transfer income from the ,ess well off to the privileged, on the basis that this would buttress their rule. <br /><br />He leaves official politics a weakthy man, who had his snout firmly in the public trough and was an utter failure at his highest job. <br /><br />I wish him just desert -- a life in which he comes to be no better off than those he sought to swindle, and the years needed to fully appreciate the harm he did. Franhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00934312179608056908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-24929975948997592042015-09-21T15:57:28.717+10:002015-09-21T15:57:28.717+10:00Hockey never illustrated an understanding of the s...Hockey never illustrated an understanding of the sectoral balances required to balance the economy (as opposed to the budget). Discussed the Federal budget in isolation of our current account deficit / high levels of private debt.<br /><br />It appears Morrison will have similar issues - promised to tackle 'debt and deficits'without yet recognising that govt debt = private savings. Will not achieve a Govt surplus in an economy with a net international investment position if -$900bn along with a $1.7trn+ in private debt.Joshua Itzkowicnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-52387990772974882742015-09-21T15:11:02.359+10:002015-09-21T15:11:02.359+10:00Without knowing him, I've always thought his &...Without knowing him, I've always thought his 'bluster' was good honest bluster on the tele. I liked him and thought he was a smart guy. Peter Martin seems to agree. Nicholas Gruenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08979019731787830666noreply@blogger.com