We know where Peter Costello stands, alright.

He stands in the middle of flatland, holding a songsheet from a bygone neoliberal songbook. Still smirking, after all these years.

Maybe he could apprentice himself to his brother and be useful to someone besides the corporate giants.

Hang on, why did I say apprentice himself? He should be doing community service!

Dr Hubbard,

Probably, the Lurking Smirker will wait until enough voters blame the Rudd government for the approaching depression and then make his move.

He's simply unelectable.

For goodness sake, can't we just forget the smirking lurker!

He hasn't got the slightest good thing going for him.

He hasn't shown aptitude for any subject other than treasury, and even then he's been more of a freeloader than a competent administrator. Every one of 'his' eleven budgets was far more attributable to the beaurocrats in his department than to him.

In the last couple of days, ex Liberal leader John Hewson has come out and basically condemned Costello as being just plain lazy, amongst other things. I can't help but agree.

And then of course there is the fundamental problem of him being stuck in the dinosaur era of continuous growth, super-high immigration and the profoundly stupid baby bonus.

I'd like to think that there is at least some chance of this hopeless future-destroying stategy changing or being moderated under Turnbull. There'd be none under Costalotello!

The comparison with Paul Keating is just silly. Keating took himself off to ready himself for a challenge to Hawke and also spent his time getting to know every last detail of John Hewson's proposed consumption tax better than Hewson himself did, and then used that knowledge to obliterate Hewson. So he was on the backbench for a reason, and he did something useful for his party while he was there. Peter Costello hasn't done anything useful during his back bench holiday, unless you call destabilsing his own party for the benefit of Rudd and Co a good thing. Perhaps he is a closet Labor man.

Would Peter Costello sign this petition: http:/www.listentous.org.au ?