The Costello success story is largely a myth.
His and Howard's legacy was one of lost opportunities, a lot of luck and a compliant media.

Our economy was rated at the 6th best in the world when he came into office but had fallen to 20th by the time he left.

The main failures include -
The sale of productive, cash generating public assets.
The failure to invest in infrastructure.
The decision not to increase Superannuation that had been planned, the effects becoming more obvious now.
The fire-sale of our gold reserves, netting $2.4billion at the time but later worth $7.4billion during the GFC.
The loss of $4.5billion gambling on foreign exchange rates.
The squandering of the proceeds of asset sales and the vast rivers of revenue from booming industries by handing it out to middle and high income earners as election bribes.

According to a Treasury report in 2008, between 2004 and 2007, the mining boom and a robust economy added $334 billion in windfall gains to the budget surplus. Of this, the Howard Government spent, or gave away in tax cuts, $314 billion, or 94 per cent.

Privatisation yielded another $72 billion.

And yet Australia’s cash in the bank when Howard left office was a pathetically low 7.3% of GDP with nothing to show for all that money.

Everyone talks about the alleged surplus left behind.

There was indeed a surplus in the last Budget (largely outstanding HECS debt) but by the time of the November election, most had been spent on electoral bribes in a desperate attempt to get re-elected.

On a political level he was too gutless to challenge Howard when he had the chance and Treasury labelled him as lazy and light on policy and he left all the heavy lifting to Public Servants.

He could never have gotten us through the GFC that followed because the only "weapon" the Liberals have is tax cuts and trickle-down economics.

I'd like to Thank everyone for their contributions to
this discussion - but for me it's now run it's course.
We'll have to wait and see what develops prior to the
election. I very much doubt if things will change -
but who knows?

It will be up to the voters to decide in which direction
the country should go. We can only hope that this time
they will get it right.

rache,
>The loss of $4.5billion gambling on foreign exchange rates.
I don't think I knew about that one. When, how and why was it done?

>The fire-sale of our gold reserves, netting $2.4billion at the time but later worth $7.4billion during the GFC.
It was hardly a fire sale. They simply weren't needed any more, and without the benefit of hindsight there was no reason to suppose the price would go any higher.

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Foxy,
No, I haven't read the Costello Memoirs. I haven't finished reading the Hawke Memoirs yet.

Why is it worth a read? Costello doesn't seem to have done anything very interesting!

Dear Aidan,

I found it interesting to get his version of events -
and it gave me a very different insight into the
man - than the one presented in the media. I ended up
quite liking him - whereas previously - I admit I
thought he was your typical party hack. It just goes
to show the importance of not making judgements until
we learn more about a person.

Aidan -
Here are a couple of references about the Exchange Rate gamble losses -

https://www.theage.com.au/opinion/a-treasurer-with-a-3-8b-gambling-problem-20020225-gdtzwh.html

https://www.theage.com.au/opinion/we-want-the-truth-about-the-currency-losses-20030724-gdw3in.html

Strangely, the rest of the media didn't make much of a fuss about it, probably because they were obsessed with the deficit, but I can only imagine the noise if it was a Labor treasurer.

There were several other blunders as well, such as $1 billion lost on a failed IT upgrade of the Public Service.

Hi Foxy,

To me Peter Costello was an integral part of the regressive Howard Government. I see him as a 'yesterdays man' with no place in Australian politics today. His brother Tim Costello would be a better choice for PM, at least he's got compassion for people, but he's not my choice either.