Despite Hockey’s argument that the fuel excise increase was “progressive”, welfare groups pointed out that the costs were a proportionately greater share of disposable income for the less wealthy.

An Australian parliamentary library research paper published in 2000explained that “petrol and diesel excises are regressive in that people on low incomes pay a higher proportion of their incomes in the form of excise than people on high incomes, given the same level of fuel use”.

The opposition leader Bill Shorten, said Hockey had shown himself to be “remarkably arrogant and out of touch”.

“Are you serious, Joe Hockey? Are you really the caricature of the cigar-chomping, Foghorn Leghorn of Australian politics, where you’re saying that poor people don’t drive cars?” Shorten said in Perth.

“That’s particularly galling in WA where the Abbott government has cut half a billion in public transport projects, and yet Joe Hockey says they don’t drive cars, yet they don’t give them another alternative. It is almost though the treasurer believes that poor people should be sleeping in their cars, not driving their cars.”

The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said Hockey’s “offensive and insulting comment” defied reality: “There are clearly high petrol costs for low-income people commuting between their suburban homes and capital cities around the country, not to mention low-income earners who rely on cars in regional and rural areas without any form of public transport alternative.”

Hockey’s office subsequently released analysis of the amounts different categories of households spent on fuel in a bid to counter the criticism.

“In terms of spending over the income distribution, average weekly expenditure on petrol in absolute terms increases with household income, from $16.36 at the lowest income quintile to $53.87 at the highest income quintile,” the analysis said.

The material, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from 2009-10, did not include any analysis of fuel costs as a share of each household’s income.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/13/joe-hockey-defends-his-poor-people-dont-drive-very-far-comments

Joe should resign... He is an idiot and a cocky economic ignoramus...

Yes, fifteen dollars to go to the doctor is a lot to ask of an old woman. Yes, $200 a week for six months is a lot to take from a young man. No, this is not a "debt and deficit disaster", it is a bump in the road. Yes, it was wrong to bid Holden to fuck off out of Australia. Yes, we could do with a car industry. Yes we could.

This man is not so much a disaster as a dill. He truly cannot add. It is a serious fault in a Treasurer.

Worse, he has nothing to bribe or threaten Palmer with.

Palmer can add, and he knows a Double Dissolution would give him eight seats in the Senate and four in the House, and would do so before Christmas. What can Joe say to that? Please?

He also shown himself to be a dill by staying silent over Gaza. Some of his cousins will have been killed there by now, and he is pretending it isn’t happening. He said he was ‘proud of my Palestinian heritage’ a year ago during the campaign, and though four hundred children have been shredded, children of his bloodline, he is saying not a word.

He should be advocating they be brought here as refugees and he is saying not a word.

No voter can trust a man like that.

He is dead in the water. He no longer has any chance of being Prime Minister. He no longer has any chance of retaining his seat. A Double Dissolution by October would finish him.

Or perhaps you disagree.

Read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/joe-hockey-the-dill-careers-off,6771

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No, we don't disagree Bob... We hope that the people of Manly and the North Shore feel ashamed of having voted for the most inept ministers on the planet in the most incompetent Australian government ever, especially Abbott and Hockey... Both stink with arrogance, bad lip service and smell of dirty whitewash under the armpits. May be we should send our petrol bills to the government — as part of the great Aussie working community. See toon at top...

Key Senate crossbencher Ricky Muir has criticised the Treasurer's statements about poor people's use of cars, saying not everyone in regional areas can "hop on cows and ride into town".

Coalition backbenchers and the Opposition have also taken Joe Hockey to task after he claimed poorer Australians would not be hit by increases to the fuel tax because "the poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases".

Victorian Motoring Enthusiasts Party senator Ricky Muir, who opposes the increase to the fuel excise, says people in regional areas generally earn less, but have further to travel and limited access to public transport.

"I don't think [the Treasurer has] ever lived in a rural, regional, or remote area where he may have been a school leaver, a job seeker, unemployed, low to mid-income where there's no public transport," he said.

"We can't all hop on cows and ride into town I don't think."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-14/hockey-under-pressure-over-petrol-excise/5669570

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Hockey has become one big arrogant ignoramus idiot in power since he was a big ignoramus non-economist in opposition...

The lowest-income earners in Australia spend the greatest amount on petrol as a proportion of income, according to new analysis, undermining claims by Joe Hockey that the increase in fuel tax is “progressive” because the wealthiest pay more.

The treasurer used Australian Bureau of Statistics figures to defend his comment that “the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases”.

But the figures on car ownership and spending on petrol circulated by Hockey’s office did not include any examination of the spending as a proportion of income, which would indicate how much of an impact it would have on family budgets.

A new analysis of those figures suggests that the lowest-earning group paid more than three times the proportion of their income on petrol as the highest group.

The analysis by the Australia Institute, a progressive think-tank, replicated Hockey’s figures that the lowest-earning 20% of households paid an average of $16.36 per week on petrol in 2009-10, rising to $53.87 for the highest-earning 20% of households.

But when expressed as a percentage of mean income for those same groups, the petrol spending represented 4.54% of income for the lowest-earning households but only 1.37% for the highest-earning ones.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/poor-spend-petrol-anger-hockey

Hockey has become one big arrogant ignoramus idiot in power since he was a big ignoramus non-economist in opposition... He should resign for being a dork. See toon at top.

The sales job on this budget has been such a train wreck it’s almost as if the government needs a public service announcement about how to avoid obvious political pitfalls – kind of like that catchy ditty made for Metro Trains in Melbourne called Dumb Ways to Die.

Members of the government have not yet set fire to their hair or poked a stick at a grizzly bear, well not literally anyway, but “Dumb Ways to Sell a Budget” would have to include several things they have already done, including these three:

1. Using the “astonishing” fact that rich people spend more money than poor people, and own more cars, as an argument to sell a regressive petrol excise rise.

Joe Hockey tried this one when he explained that poor people “don’t have cars or don’t actually drive very far” and therefore would not be disproportionately hit by the proposed increase in fuel excise. To back this the treasurer produced Treasury figures showing that absolute spending on petrol is higher in high-income households, and showing that high-income households tend to have more cars.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/dumb-ways-to-sell-a-budget-a-singalong-guide-for-joe-hockey

Yes Gus.

If Joe Hockey’s pronouncements about the poorest Australians not owning or driving cars are a demonstration of his economic credentials, then there are at least 23,562,059 Australians capable of doing a better job as treasurer than this economic Neanderthal.

Cheers.

John

Yes John...

Joe has not got an ounce of economic credential whatsoever.... He admitted to Leigh Sales in 2009 that he WASN'T AN ECONOMIST and WASN'T GOING TO PRETEND TO BE ONE...  All Joe Hockey does in on the whim of his addiction to power and to the conviction of his Liberal (CONservative) neo-fascist doctrine.

See: well, here is the reason why his budget stinks...

Mr Pyne stated three times that Mr Hockey was "doing an inspirational job as Treasurer", and declared he had the full support of the Government.

"Of course he does. Absolutely," he said.

On the same show, Opposition frontbencher Anthony Albanese found Mr Pyne's support disingenuous.

"You had six opportunities to say you agreed with Joe Hockey said, and you refused to do so. Why? Because what he said was rubbish," Mr Albanese said.

"If you are in an outer suburb or you are in a regional community, you have no choice but to drive."

Yesterday Mr Hockey stood by his comments about car use, saying he was presenting facts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-15/pyne-declines-to-back-hockey/5672412

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Obviously, Joe Hockey has read the ABS statistical charts "sideways right" in order to come up with his brilliant spin on the driving habits of Orstralyens... Meanwhile Pyne is Pyne to the power of minus three equals zero in understanding anything of intellectual worth. Nothing we can do about it except throw him out next time...

Date

August 15, 2014 - 3:15PM

Treasurer Joe Hockey has delivered a grovelling apology for suggesting the “poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far” and that the government’s proposed fuel excise increase was a progressive tax measure.

Mr Hockey had initially stood by the comments he had made on Brisbane radio on Wednesday, stating he was sorry if they had been callous but insisting he had statistical evidence on his side.

But in an embarrassing rebuke for the Treasurer, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Friday that “Well plainly, I wouldn't say that" before adding the Treasurer had his full support.

Senior front bench colleague Christopher Pyne also said on Friday that Mr Hockey had his “full support” six times, but then declined six times to back Mr Hockey's inflammatory comments.

We owe Mr Hockey an apology, says ᴁrchie from ᴁrchie's Archive — he was right about poor people.

I need to apologise to you, Mr Hockey.

Like so many other Australians, I was upset by your remarks about the fuel tax and how we poor people pay so little of it.

Then I realised you were correct!

So many of us poor people drive small, four cylinder cars, which use such small amounts of fuel. It is probably this selfish attitude which led to the closure of Ford and Holden and Toyota.

We poor people are to blame for so much of what is wrong with our AAA economy.

Some of us are even unemployed and expect to be able to use some of our dole payment for food instead of fuel for our cars.

Having a car means we do not need other accommodation, as we can sleep in the car and eat at the Golden Arches instead of cooking. But that will allow us to do a little bit more of the heavy lifting and pay extra fuel tax.

Then, yesterday, I saw your car parked in a disabled bay.

Well, I didn’t actually see you. I was walking through Harvey Norman’s looking at the electronic things I do not deserve and I spotted a Channel Nine segment which showed you beside your parked vehicle which was clearly sitting over a disabled sign.

Again I felt an initial outrage because I know of people who actually need those parking bays. Then I thought about it and realised that you are teaching us a lesson.

The disabled are an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer’s dollar. There is no way they should be travelling around our shopping centres and CBD’s. If they are truly disabled they should be at home suffering with the traditional Australian stiff upper lip. Not out where everyone can see them.

What I hadn’t realised, until you so eloquently showed us, is that those disabled people who are out and about should be employed productively. Not stealing parking bays which can be usefully filled with important people’s cars.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/thank-you-mr-hockey,6781

Yes, the master of soft right-handed spin and nice turds of phrase wrapped up in red Liberal (CONservative) packages, Andrew Bold, in his Bolt Report, stumbled upon the concept that we — possibly moronic and hard of hearing (Gus version of whom we could be while listening to Joe Hockey grating the cheese while smoking a cigar) — misunderstood what Joe actually said... Yes Andrew, we did not hear what he said... We only heard what he said...

And obviously, we misunderstood what he said because YOU know he did not mean what he said... and to make sure Joe did not mean what he said, he repeated the same thing over a few days with treasury document at hands to prove that what he said was right, though we did not hear what he said because he read the document without understanding what it meant... 

But we, moronic and hard of hearing old kooks, we truly understood what he meant by what he said: "Get stuffed, you poor bastards..." He did mean this with intent, though he did not say it...

The Coalition Government has announced today that for the sake of accuracy Joe Hockey’s official parliamentary title will be rebranded ‘Treasurer, For Now.’

The change was necessitated by the increasing speculation over whether Hockey would retain his position or become a victim of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s ‘Good Government’ revolution.

“Obviously I would like to stay in the role,” said Hockey. “Think of it this way - there is absolutely no way I could do a worse job on the next budget as I did on the last one. That’s improvement right there. If I knew how to, I would graph it.

“More than that, it is important that I’m kept on to keep the unemployment rate down. In fact, maybe we can solve unemployment altogether by making everyone the treasurer. That’d be nice. It’d also mean there would be someone around here still talking to me. Oh, that would be lovely.”

http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/article/2015/02/11/joe-hockeys-official-tit...

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Clive Palmer has called for Treasurer Joe Hockey to be sacked over a number of unpopular measures in the Government's budget.

One minister has told the ABC the Treasurer should be replaced with Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Hockey has been under pressure with reports some Liberal colleagues believe his performance in selling the budget message has not been good enough and they want him replaced.

Mr Palmer, leader of the Palmer United Party, said Mr Hockey's affirmation that the Government still intended to pursue changes to Medicare and higher education showed he did not understand how to stimulate the economy.

"It's time to throw the guy out because we can't continue to affect peoples lives the way they're continuing to do it," Mr Palmer told ABC News Breakfast.

Mr Turnbull has this morning denied seeking the job, or being approached about it by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

"I have never asked or suggested to the Prime Minister that he should appoint me as treasurer," Mr Turnbull said.

"The Prime Minister has never asked me or suggested to me in any way that he would appoint me treasurer.

"I have complete confidence in Joe Hockey, my friend and colleague, as treasurer."

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-11/clive-palmer-calls-for-joe-hockey-to-be-sacked/6084820

The loser supports his treasurer... Total deludation... Meanwhile Hockey wants to make your life as miserable as possible for a bit longer..:

Treasurer Joe Hockey has dismissed reports that some of his Coalition colleagues want him replaced as "static" and "gossip", as the Government struggles to break free of its leadership turmoil.

One minister has told the ABC the Treasurer's job should go to Communications Minister and former leader Malcolm Turnbull, amid more widespread discontent on the backbench about the performance of Mr Hockey and Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

This morning Mr Turnbull did not deny that colleagues had sounded him out about the job but said he had not approached Mr Abbott about it

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-11/joe-hockey-dismisses-rumours-that-...