I usually steer well clear of politics on my blog but today I will make an exception as a news story has just broken that really has pricked my nerve.
Joe Hockey, failure extraordinaire as Treasurer of Australia has today been announced as the new Ambassador to the United States-Australia’s plum diplomatic posting.
Talk about scraping the depths of mediocrity with a fine tooth comb. No wonder we have no faith in our political system when bums like him are given such lucrative positions simply because someone in parliament wanted him out of the way and promised him the job.
Ambassador to the United States? Ambassador to Zamboanga would be more appropriate. What a disgrace.
This is the bloke who declared in parliament that the age of entitlement was over and if you wanted to improve yourself then you should get a better job. The man who complained about the level of debt accumulated by the previous government then doubled the nation’s debt ceiling. The man who almost assuredly had his foot in his mouth every time he opened it. A failure in a government which will go down in history as one of our worst and which is only now starting to get onto an even keel under a new Prime Minister and Treasurer-a regime which saw the light and realized that Hockey and his cohort-the former Prime Minister Abbott had to go. The only trouble is they made him ambassador to the United States!
Hockey must have ability in some walk of life. He is a wealthy man and was a lawyer of some sort before his stint in parliament. Someone in North Sydney saw fit to pre-select him for the seat and the rest is history. A high profile member of the Liberal Party once touted as a potential leader but who never managed to realize it. Any ascension to his party’s top job would have been an embarrassment akin to the Alexander Downer era. Then again, they did end up with Abbott as Prime Minister-a sorry joke if ever there was one.
Oh, I hear the Hockey supporters grumbling. Kim Beazley, the former Labour opposition leader is the man he is replacing, should not the same standard of criticism be applied to him? The short answer is no.
Kim Beazley in spite of losing a couple of elections was still widely respected when he left politics under similar circumstances to Mr Hockey. He was also a capable and effective minister and deputy leader in a capable and effective government which was in power for over a decade. And from all accounts a capable and effective delegate in the United States. Mr Hockey has big shoes to fill. I have no faith that he will rise to the occasion.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 