from the Monthly ….

Peter Costello’s claim to “legendary treasurer” status rests on three pillars.

The first is that he inherited a huge budget “black hole” from Labor in 1996 and fixed it. The second is that he managed money well, delivering surplus after surplus. The third is that by delivering cuts he ensured taxes were kept low during the 12 years he played a significant role in the Coalition government.

This morning, Costello published a column for the News Ltd tabloids, attacking the Liberal Party’s budget strategy of raising taxes, not cutting them. He wrote that the government’s economic slogan – Lower, simpler, fairer – “is looking like some kind of morbid joke”. (He also attacked every other party for wanting to raise taxes.)

Who knows why Costello decided to attack his own party so flagrantly? He might have wanted to make a contribution to public debate. He might have wanted to remind people of his reputation as the low-taxing treasurer who spun straw into gold, Rumpelstiltskin-style. Ex-politicians do a lot of this: polishing their legacies so the public won’t forget them.

Well, in the parlance of modern media, you won’t believe what happened next.

The prime minister came out to say that Costello had inherited a smaller deficit than the current government had. Strike one.

Treasurer Joe Hockey said he wished he had a job as easy as Costello’s: “If I had the same revenue as he had, then I’d be getting $25 billion extra each year to spend on things.” It’s not that hard to manage money when it’s being thrown at you. Strike two.

The assistant treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, pointed out that tax was high under Costello, at 23.6% of GDP. (The previous Labor government averaged under 22%, though the exact figure seems debated. It’s about 22% now according to Frydenberg.) So Costello didn’t deliver low taxes either. Strike three.

And with that, almost the whole of Costello’s hoped-for legacy was demolished by his own party.

Still, at least Costello hung onto his job for more than a decade. I stumbled across the Wikipedia page for the 2015 Australian federal budget today, which includes this gem: “Treasurer Joe Hockey, assuming he holds his office, is expected to present the budget to the House of Representatives in May 2015”.

Backfire