Geez, Peter Costello was seriously unhappy yesterday. Maybe it was the day it all finally became clear to him. The big day had arrived, when John Howard had moved on and he didn’t have to present his 13th Budget, but could sit back and watch someone else do it. Problem was, of course, he would be watching from a lot further away than the PM’s spot in the Reps chamber. And on the wrong side.
So he was in a testy mood when he agreed to speak to journalists at a doorstop yesterday morning. Indeed, downright Nixonian. He didn’t quite declare that we wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore, but he did declare that he’d had enough of being at the beck and call of journalists. He mocked David Speers’ question about leaving politics, which was fair enough, but then gave Michelle Grattan a serve about her glasses. Grattan’s eyesight may not be the best, but at least her ticker is in good working order, unlike the former Treasurer’s.
You reckon this man is sticking around politics for much longer? If he is, he probably shouldn’t count on getting an easy run from The Age.
“We gave you the surpluses,” Costello shrilled while Swan was delivering the Budget speech, shaking his head in disbelief that the Government wasn’t lauding the outstanding management of its predecessors.
It’s rather a worry that the man who ran the Treasury for so many years so evidently still doesn’t get it. You didn’t give any surpluses, Peter, not this decade, anyway. You sat and grew fat and lazy as all that Chinese money rolled in and the only decisions you had to make were about the size of the tax handouts you gave and how to encourage Ministers to find creative ways of wasting money.
Costello was also one of the last Coalition MPs to leave the Chamber after the Budget speech, as if stunned into incredulity by the fact that he wasn’t on the opposite side congratulating Treasurer Nelson, or Treasurer Bishop or, lawd help us, Treasurer Hockey, on another Coalition spend-a-thon. Hockey came around and shook Costello’s hand, evidently congratulating him on the sound budget position inherited by their opponents. Costello was doubtless chuffed.
Winter is coming. Hope that axe you’ve just spent the length of that article grinding, provides you with a vast amount of firewood to last you many a winter.
I heard PC in his doorstop say that WS is the luckiest treasurer in the world having inherited from him a powerful surplus to work with.
Well it wasn’t PCostello who has given the extremely lucky WSwan the surplus to work with. It was thanks to CPC. Communist Party of China that’s making the PC Libs love themselves and their lives.
Communists, those subhuman things (like terrorists) that the Libs hated so much they relished in the killing of millions of them in Indonesia, Vietnam, Bali (where no commo’s lived) but 80,000 to 100,000 were slaughtered just for target practice. Those of us who didn’t condone this psychopathic hate of commo’s have the right to kiss commo China’s bum but those others should pay for the privilege. All a bit to intergenerational (like ANZAC day) for the Dr Brendon and other PC friends.
Mr. Keane and dennis are both correct but this self-destruction of the Liberals is not good news unless you’re completely one-eyed or short-sighted.
Great article Bernard, of course it wouldnt go down very well with the Lib readers, they like Cossie will be finding it more than a little uncomfortable having to listen to a Labor Treasurer, keeping his parties promises, caring for the lower and middle income groups and building towards the future. Somewhat difficult to equate those attributes to the Howard/Costello years. Not forgetting the tax cuts that Cossie used as bribes in election years, and not having the ticker to tell Howard to go to hell. As much as Howard became a one man ( one woman Mrs H)band, a dictatorial aged tunnel visioned loser, Cossie even when he saw the damage being done to the Coalition, sat on his hands and smirked his way through the last 3 years of the dictatorship, allowing Howard to sink in his own blind ignorance. There is no point in the Libs staying in denial, complaining about not fair treatment. There ship is rudderless (woops 🙂 no skipper and no forseeable future. Self destruction at its best.
This article is long on speculation but awfully short on substance. Take the last paragraph, “as if stunned…” “evidentially congratulating …” doubtless chuffed”…
We pay good money for Crikey. We shouldn’t be subject to this garbage.