Mathias Cormann never got to deliver the surplus he worked so hard in government to achieve over seven years. In fact, he leaves behind Australia’s biggest ever deficit, by a huge distance.
That’s crucial to supporting the economy, he rightly argues, and it that has been enabled by the government’s previous fiscal discipline. But it’s hard not to feel some sympathy that the work Cormann put in from 2013 onwards was never paid off with a surplus, even a token one. A tiny deficit was the closest he got in 2019. Then COVID-19 came and changed the world.
As Crikey routinely noted throughout his time as steward of the nation’s finances, the government’s slow reduction in the deficit — far slower than Joe Hockey had promised in 2013 — was mainly driven by the Liberals’ passion for higher taxes. Inheriting a tax:GDP ratio of 21.3% of GDP, the government jacked that up first above 22%, and then to 23% in 2019.
It’s much easier to get back to surplus when you have an extra 3% of GDP in tax receipts compared to what your predecessors had to deal with.
But Cormann’s fiscal discipline also played an important role. He kept real spending growth below 2% a year — something the Howard government only managed once in its last two terms — all the way until Scott Morrison let spending rip in a successful effort to buy the 2019 election.
The finance minister managed that while being a ministerial scrabble blank for Abbott and Turnbull, with more than 18 months’ worth of stints as special minister of state in addition to finance, plus a lengthy spell as assistant treasurer. That was in addition to the deputy leadership of the government in the Senate from 2015-17 and leadership from 2017.
In that role, Cormann was superior in every way to his predecessor George Brandis. A skilled negotiator with the cross-bench, Cormann was indefatigable in pursuing deals to secure passage of legislation with a variety of minor parties and independents — it was no coincidence that with Cormann in Senate leadership positions, the government’s record of passing more difficult legislation significantly improved from the Abbott era of “zombie measures” lasting multiple budgets.
Unlike Brandis, Cormann’s opponents respected and trusted him as a negotiator and Senate leader; it says much that he was able to maintain a friendship with his opposite, predecessor as finance minister and estimates tormentor Penny Wong.
A key part of Cormann’s skill was his discipline. It wasn’t so much the Schwarzeneggerian accent that made for a Terminator comparison, it was his robotic adherence to talking points and the government’s key messages, no matter what. His gaffes and stumbles were few and far between, even when bone-tired and delivering the day’s messages as election spokesman — though he once confused Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull and delivered a ringing endorsement of the former rather than the latter during the 2016 campaign.
There was that cigar just before the 2014 budget. And his admission that wage stagnation reflected a “deliberate” feature of the industrial relations system was also seized on by critics, which chagrined him immensely. But otherwise he was always annoyingly, boringly flawless in sticking to his messages, in a way no other politician in Australian history has managed.
Katharine Murphy once wondered whether, as the governments he formed part of stumbled from crisis to crisis and his colleagues melted down in public, Cormann delivered his lines perfectly and then went into a small room and screamed.
The discipline, the hard work, the focus on longer term goals, and the constant subbing into other portfolios made Cormann the rock of a government that churned through three leaders and three treasurers and seemed permanently one crisis away from disintegration.
Eventually Cormann himself cracked under the pressure generated by his party’s tensions, famously resigning from the Turnbull ministry not because Peter Dutton had the numbers (it would turn out Dutton and his backers were innumerate) but because — he says — he believed Turnbull’s continuation as leader would keep the turmoil brewing in the party.
Turnbull says Cormann told him “you have to give in to the terrorists”, which if not true, is an accurate summation of Cormann’s stated reasons.
Whether the lurid claims about Cormann being part of a Dutton putsch from the outset have any truth or not, Cormann’s role in the Turnbull ouster left a major blot on the record of the man who for much of the Coalition’s five years in government had been the only adult in the room.
So Cormann departs, like so many Western Australians on all sides of politics, exhausted by the travel from Perth and the constant absences from his young family — incessant travel has curtailed many political careers, good, bad and indifferent, from the west. But he leaves with the sense that he never quite enjoyed the full benefits of his work and discipline.
If he’d been in the lower house he’d have made a fine Liberal leader and prime minister — socially conservative like Abbott, but without the latter’s bizarre obsessions and 12th century mindset; less brilliant and innovative than Turnbull, but more disciplined and consistent; and a man of substance compared to Morrison — whose self-promotion, at least according to Turnbull, Cormann couldn’t abide as treasurer.
Labor has caught flack for backing Cormann for the secretary-generalship of the OECD, but he’d be the best former pollie this government sent abroad — and god knows it has sent plenty of them.
A German-speaking Belgian with a political career in Europe before he moved to Perth because he loved the place, Cormann represents the best of Australia’s multicultural and immigration history. Simon Birmingham can succeed him as finance minister and Senate leader, but no one in this government can replace him.
One of life’s enduring mysteries, Bernard’s man crush on Mathias. I’m frankly outraged by Labor backing him for the OECD position. One of the architects of the Abbott austerity budget which literally tried to shaft every constituency Labor supposedly represents and part of a government which has spent the last 2 decades destroying any chance of Australia developing a sensible policy on climate change. Cormann is the last person I’d want representing us on the global stage
yep – truly one of the mysteries of our time. but BK is still very much in transition to the new emerging economic orthodoxy.
The property port folio aspirants of middle Australia have such low bar standards..
Australian governments are oblivious to OECD reports. It’s a quiet ineffectual backwater in which to lose him
ps I speak as someone who has attended OECD meetings as a national rep
All the other points may be true, but we are supposed to admire someone who relentlessly regurgitates the talking points no matter how silly and no matter what the question?
I take your point, admiration is optional, but Keane is right to cite this as evidence of Cormann’s tenacity and discipline. Few if any of his colleagues could maintain the same relentless output of the same phrases day in, day out. Every answer he gave to any question in any interview included some gratuitous swipe at Labor – the question might have been only about the weather but still he’d bash Labor almost as though he had some rare variation of Tourette’s syndrome. It was quite something: annoying above all, and diabolically tedious, but still undeniably disciplined.
But it’s hard not to feel some sympathy that the work Cormann put in from 2013 onwards was never paid off with a surplus, even a token one. Why? Why? Why? All that single-minded, merciless deprivation his government imposed upon unemployed Australians whose plight was dictated by his government’s policies, deprivation in the name of achieving a surplus. A surplus for what? Just for the sake of saying, “We have achieved a surplus. Look at us, with all our rorts and our corrupt, destructive largesse to our mates, by hammering the most vulnerable in society we have shown that we are financially disciplined and responsible.” Goodbye, Mathias. You probably had the intellectual capacity to do better but not the heart. It’s to be hoped that better, more rounded candidates are found for the secretary-generalship of the OECD in a worldwide field where your mastery of a few languages is commonplace. And don’t hurry to put your hand up for a state seat here in Perth!
Totally agree. Heartless government that continue their attack and lies on the unemployed and disadvantaged.
I’ll never forget that picture of Hockey and Cormann after delivering a horror budget, sitting there smoking Cigars, celebrating a job well done, in their minds.
And regarding his Legacy in driving the Country’s finances in a Federal Coalition Government. He defied the oft repeated Coalition Mantra of “Taxes will always be higher under a Labor Government”, which incidentally is not true, by increasing the Tax take, and minimizing spending growth.
The claim about the Budget getting “Back into Black” was also a furphy, as it was achieved by cutting expenditure from a number areas, slowing down wage growth, and increasing the Debt.
Along with the rest in this Coalition Government, he has presided over the Rich getting Richer, and the Poor getting Poorer, with increasing numbers barely surviving under the Poverty line.
A consistent opponent of climate action and enthusiastic wrecker of the effective Gillard/Greens/Windsor/Oakshot carbon pricing mechanism, Corman now calls for a green recovery as part of his bid for a job with the OECD. Hopefully the Europeans at least see through his hypocrisy.