Joe has been shooting his mouth off recently: the tax cuts should have been deferred, the Howard/Costello govt should have had bigger surpluses (by) and not spent so much on middle class welfare and tax cuts (and rorting, pork barreling etc etc but Joe wasn't brave enough to say that.
We remember, and Swannee has pointed out, that Attabull was saying the tax cuts should be brought forward.
Now, is Joe distancing the Fibs from the toxic Howard legacy and Tip's really poor economic management? Or is he thinking of making a run for the Leadership at some point? He would have buckleys, Mr WorkChoices and lately involved in Utegate then leaving his Leader stranded when the email behind Utegate was proved to be forged.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... ion=justinOne of the Opposition's most senior frontbenchers says personal income tax cuts in Australia may have gone too far, and there was a case for the Rudd Government reneging on the promised tax cuts it delivered in the last Federal Budget.
...
In hindsight, he said, governments should put more of the money aside in the savings funds set up to finance future education, health and infrastructure needs.
Hockey is a fool. Take note especially of the last three paragraphs.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 01,00.html
If the opposition treasury spokesman can’t even interpret a graph correctly how could they be trusted with government.Joe Hockey creates more turmoil for Malcolm Turnbull
Mr Hockey claimed the BIS report showed that the automatic stimulus created when the budget slipped into deficit was more effective in Australia than in any other country except the US and Korea, meaning that less deliberate stimulus spending was required to keep the economy growing.
A spokesman for the Treasurer said Mr Hockey had misread the BIS data, which in fact showed the automatic stimulus to growth from a rising budget deficit was less effective in Australia than in most other advanced economies.
Mr Hockey conceded that his comments were in error, saying they were based on the incorrect interpretation of a graph.