Belly
'I just can not take runner on face value, is it humor? Abbot?
He would not win a raffle if he bought every ticket.
His vote within his party would be far less than ten.'

Unfortunately I think you are right. Turnbull and many of his men have little moral conviction like most of the Greens and Labour party. Abbot thankfully is an exception to the disgust of the immoral left media machine (ABC and ABS) included.

There's a very interesting article on
newmatilda.com - written by Ben Eltham,
17 June 2009. You can read it at:

http://newmatilda.com/2009/06/17/so-long-farewell-auf-wiedersehen-goodbyeee

It provides a good take on Peter Costello.

*It provides a good take on Peter Costello.*

Actually Foxy, no it does not. Its just a young journo, who
has to write something, to fill his page for the day and earn
his crust.

As Alan Kohler notes in today's Business Spectator, one of the
reasons why we largely avoided a banking crash as in Europe or
the US, is much better banking regulation. Kohler reckons
that the Americans could learn something from us on that
score. Guess who introduced that? Costello did.

You need to think through the ramifications of that, to realise
the implications.

Who stopped Woodside being taken over by Shell? Costello did.
Once again, incredibly important to the nation.

Why did Costello introduce the 50% capital gain figure? For
good reasons, as previously capital gains were indexed for
inflation as they should be, anything else is Govt robbery.
The only problem is that for practical purposes, the calculations
can be complex, so to simplify the tax system, Costello changed
it to 50%.

Smartarses will always be smartarses, but at the end of the day,
it cannot be denied that he was a good treasurer for many years,
internationally recognised as that and thus his appointment as
part time advisor to the World Bank. Give people credit where
it is due I say. Smartarse knockers are a dime a dozen,
but people with good judgement are rare.

Your journo is just another smartarse knocker it seems.

Righto Yabby,

Now let's look at what PC didn't do.

He didn't take the political heat on one solitary domestic political issue I can remember.

Whilst Howard was fielding the curly questions on the GST, for example, Pete was alliterating over Kim Beazley's rollback of the GST and his rolled gold promise etc, ad infinitum. Then there was the constant refrain about the GST replacing the wholesale sales tax. For what he achieved during this time, he may as well have stood on the sidelines and juggled fruit. There were also reports that the LP was busy hiding Costello from the voters during election campaigns. How often do you remember him being prominent in them?

More examples: Costello said he wanted to to the bridge walk for reconciliation, but pulled out after Cabinet pressure. He did nothing to alleviate the GST paperwork burden on small businesses by simplifying the Business Activity Statement despite making some grand statements about tax simplification. Also, not much, if anything, came out of Dick Warburton's Tax Value Method proposal which was intended to be a more holistic treatment of taxation.

So whatever PC did was behind the scenes, very general or at a lofty or international level and we, the ordinary public, are supposed to believe he was good because you say so? I believe he did keep the economy on an even keel (and Keating said as much of Costello) but to be a good Treasurer, he needed to extend his reforms through to the domestic economy as well. That never happened.

Dear Yabby,

Keep your shirt on - all I'm trying to do is
to have a discussion here that presents
both sides of the coin - so to speak, so that we can
get a better picture of the man known as Peter
Costello. The new matilda article that I referred to
earlier, I came across this morning, and it
was only meant of show another side of the coin.
Young journo or not (I don't know the reporter),
but it's an opinion - which presents a point of view,
whether you agree with it or not. It's validity
depends on your political persuasion. One thing
that most financial experts do agree on is - Peter
Costello was Treasurer during a "boom" period in
Australia. How well he would do during the current
difficult financial times - we'll never know.
Also, John Howard controlled the reigns at the time,
and gave instructions which had to be followed.
Costello's true capabilities were never given a chance
to be seen.

Dear RobP,

Thank you for giving us a further insight into Peter
Costello.

I'm hoping that the man will write another book,
perhaps we'll get yet another glimpse of who this
man actually is - and what he really thinks (if
that's possible - from a public figure).

Foxy,
Like I said I had contact with him and his underlying character while he was at uni. I found him to be a self possessed individual with all the earmarks of being the same as a politician. I have not read or heard anything to change my opinion since then. However I am open to being surprised as always.

I do however note that he lacked what ever it was to be better than he appeared. Then again, tilting at windmills/causes is my specialty and
I must remember not every one holds my views of 'why not?'(thanks bob). (fortunately? hmmmm) :-)