In 'Catallaxy Files today, someone calling himself Spartacus is ruminating on the “...Worst Treasurer in Recent Australian History.” He reckons that Scott Morrison looks like taking over from Wayne Swan as worst Treasurer in our recent history.

As a disillusioned ex-Liberal voter/turned Australian Conservative, I totally agree with the sentiment. The debt is even bigger than Labor ever wrought – and Morrison talks absolute codswollop on TV. No matter what you think about public debt, Morrison and the Coalition have totally abandoned all Coalition principles on government spending and financial matters. Now the clown thinks he can dictate to banks what they do with bonuses to employees. The man is a complete fool.

And we have wait 2 years to drain our particular swamp. If we still exist as a nation that is.

The last two sentences sum up beautifully:

“Forget manufacturing and wages.  Energy and monetary policy have killed those.  As for economic policy, given the current trajectory, it could be worth rejoicing if Australia could even maintain banana republic status.

Rule of law?  For other suckers."

you are right ttbn however spending and taxes will rise drastically with Labour. The swamp won't be drained and we are quickly following Greece. There are far to many self interested parties to stop and reverse the spending. Look at the money totally wasted on the abc to spread their hate and dogmas. Turnbull/Morrison has had no appetite to do what is right future generations. From the renewables scam to pouring billions more into a failed education system.

ttbn,

Your're putting the Tutnbull government between a rock and a hard place. One group of past supporters, see the government as too liberal, therefore deserting in favor of a more conservative party(s). That's not so bad as most of those votes, at least in the lower house, will flow back to the Coalition through preferences. What should be a real worry for them is the small "l" liberal swing voters who perceive Turnbull as too conservative, once promoting himself as a real progressive, those voters have shifted their support more or less to Labor. What must worry the Liberals, is not just the fact their primary vote is down, so is Labor's, to a certain extent, but the fact they are not recovering the vote on a two party preferred basis. The kiss of death is upon them.

Seriously, what does the government have to do to get your vote back, and more importantly, all those lost swing voters as well?

runner,

Yes. Unfortunately the Coalition's choice to do the dirty on its supporters and move Left means that Labor will have to move even further Left to catch up.

Paul,

I don't see how anyone called perceive the new Coalition as being too conservative, but I'm sure some people do, and they wouldn't be voting Liberal anyway. I take it you are talking about the cheer squad of never-ever-voted-Liberal. The polls and the media told us how thrilled those people were with Turnbull; but they were only thrilled because he was to the left of Abbott. They never intended to vote for Turnbull. It was all dumb reporting by the dumb media.

What does the government have to do to get my vote back? It cannot do anything to get my vote back. The Liberal party is stuffed, and I doubt that it will ever recover. I don't know how many more elections I will see, but there is no way I will vote for a party which is no different from Labor in just about everything. The only difference now is border protection, but I don't think it would be long before Turnbull went Left on that if he got back in.

I'm not sure whether Turnbull is stupid or evil.

ttbn, I am not sure in what part of Australia you're in but in Sydney. and I assume Melbourne, and the other larger centres of population, many previous Liberal swing voters are also social progressives. With the divisive infighting and the perceived shift in Turnbulls own agenda, these voters have swung to Labor. It's obvious from the polls two party preferred vote that some who voted for the Coalition last election intend voting Labor this time around, you can't deny that with a claim of "never-ever-voted-Liberal", they certainly did vote Liberal, following the dumping of Abbott.
People like yourself have shifted to those pushing a more conservative line. You're not so much the problem for Turnbull, as I said before in the lower house the conservative vote will return to the Coalition through preferences. However the same vote going to Hanson and Bernardi in the Senate would be a headache for a future Coalition government, it would be a nightmare for any Labor government.

ttbn,

It would be extremely difficult to reach the levels of incompetence shown by Whine Swan. His $9bn cash hand out and the $16bn to build largely unneeded shoddy buildings at double the normal price was a masterpiece of Labor waste.

With TA unable to roll back the wasteful spending bills MT and SM are simply trying to make the system work. While true conservative would like better fiscal prudence, you work with what you can.

Shadow,

The 'Tories' answer to the GFC and its resultant impact that would have brought a massive recession upon Australia, would have been? WHAT, do nothing! Fan-F'n-Tastic, your concern for your fellow Australians is touching. As long as you're all right, bugger the rest, great philosophy.

In recent history Australia has been fortunate to have had two not too bad Treasurers. Wayne Swan for one, and Peter Costello was the other

come on Paul the regressive dishonest mantra if you tell a lie often enough it becomes true can't exonerate the economic vandals of the Rudd/Gillard/Shorten days.

Paul,

Preferences. I never follow those on how to vote cards. Last election I put the Liberal candidate second to last and Labor last. There were enough candidates on the ticket to allow me to deny those two anything from me. The seat of Adelaide is very volatile, and was due to swing back to Liberal, but Labor held it and the Liberal candidate polled very badly. I don't think it will be different next election, with Turnbull and the Coalition even more on the nose than they were then.

ttbn,

I assume in your seat, at the last election, it ended up a Liberal/Labor contest with those being the final two candidates after preferences were distributed. Your vote ended up in the Liberal pile, that is how it works. With the preferential system other candidates are eliminated one by one until a winner who has 50% plus 1 vote minimum is declared. Starting with the candidate that polled the lowest number of votes first. In a close contest that would require the elimination of all other candidates one by one except the final two. In a Federal election, with preferential voting it is so unfair that every voter is forced to vote for one of the final two candidates, more often than not its Labor and Liberal, so they like the system.

I favor optional preferential voting, where you only number in order the candidates you prefer. If you only prefer one candidate you only put the number "1" if there are say six candidates and you only prefer say four of them, you only number 1,2,3 and 4 in your order of choice, stuff the other two candidates you don't want them at all, so why should you have to vote for one of the fools

cont,

Glad to see you preferenced The Greens candidate over Liberal and Labor.

Another point, I hate the way some parties, particularly the big two impose a candidate on the membership time and again, sometimes the incumbent is imposed, sometime an outsider is parachuted in without the grass roots people having a voice. I hate that practice.
The Greens constitution does not allow for that crap of imposing a candidate, all members can vote. Even where there is only one nomination, there is a choice for members, you can vote for "no support" over that nominee. Every nominee must face the membership, even if you are a sitting member, or a celeb, or of the "right type". they all have to put their case why the should be the candidate, you have to be a member of a local branch, voted in by the branch, you have to be willing to take questions from the floor, and accept the final vote of the membership. That applies from Local government to Federal parliament. If you want to run for the Senate for The Greens, be prepared to do some travailing around the state over a few weeks, to face several member forums, you have to attend at least one, even if you are a sitting senator. I hope your party does the same thing when the time comes.

I agree on the imposition of candidates. Look at the corruption in NSW. Members should choose, and candidates should have to explain themselves to the public well before there is an election. As long as people vote for parties - because they don't have clue about the candidates - we will continue to get dogs in government.

Paul,

"The 'Tories' answer to the GFC and its resultant impact that would have brought a massive recession upon Australia."

You are fond of gilding the Lilly, but this is one of your worst outright lies. If you are pig ignorant on a subject keep your mouth shut instead of simply making crap up. Clearly, you have no clue as what the Coalition would have done.

Peter Costello took over from yet another Labor disaster and helped create the single highest decade of growth in Australia's history. He has run the $100bn future fund at growth rates higher than any other investment fund in Aus. Swan would be lucky to get a job as a bookkeeper.

Shadow, you are a blowhard with no experience at anything, continually out of your depth on all subjects, a guru of nonsense, who simply peddles the stock standard hard right rubbish you are fed by the likes of the Murdoch gutter press and Fox news. Always on here linking and quoting from your bible of drivel, "The Daily Telecrap'. Take the Bolt fiasco for example, you fell for Bolts exaggerated yarn, hook line and sinker. Are you still claiming an arrest is imminent? You poor sod if you believe that!

When it comes to gilding the Lilly, as you put it, the Abbott government, and then Turnbull's mob are past masters at it. With the government debt at record levels and growing daily these financial incompetents either try to blame it all on the previous Labor government, which was out of office in September 2013, that's four years ago, or they will make the superfluous claim that the Nations debt would have been, in some way, larger if Labor was still in office. These standard, yet ridiculous lines are repeated by the most gullible of persons, such as yourself.

ttbn is right on one score, Morrison is a shocker of a Treasurer, a real fox in charge of the hen house, a failure of monumental proportions!

Paul,

Lying yet again!!

I assume that this latest dummy spit is because you have been caught out telling porkies yet again, I think 4 porkies in one post is a new record for you. I understand that you and the Greens as blowhard left whingers who are universally ignorant that amongst your fact free peers that you are applauded for emotional outbursts of BS, but I am less tolerant of your mendacity.

Why would I think that Labor and the greens are still largely responsible for the debt, Simply because all attempts to reverse the huge spending bills they passed in the dying days of the Labor/green/corrupt government have been blocked in the Senate by the Labor/green coalition.

Why would anyone believe that the debt would be higher with a Labor government? Simply because they told us so with 10s of $bns of spending over and above that of the coalition.

Morrison is better than any pinhead from Labor or the greens.

Shadow, you are either totally ignorant of the situation, which is most of the time, or you are telling another one of your famous porkies;

"Simply because all attempts to reverse the huge spending bills they passed in the dying days of the Labor/green/corrupt government have been blocked in the Senate by the Labor/green coalition."

When you learn to count you will find that Labor/Greens do not have a majority in the Senate. therefore their combined vote cannot block anything.
Let this incompetent Coalition government take responsibility for their incompetence. And stop lying!

Paul,

You can't stop lying! One either votes for (supporting) a bill or against (blocking) a bill, and if Labor or the greens either voted for the bills or abstained they would pass.

You also lied about what I said about Antifa,
You lied about what the coalition would do, and now you are lying about the greens not blocking savings. Perhaps it is because the greens are taking $ms in dirty money from corrupt unions?