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Sloppy Joe

Anyone watching the PM's press conference on HIH earlier this week may have wondered who was the dumpling standing behind him like an errant schoolboy at a parent-teacher night. Joe Hockey, the Tool Shed is your's for a week!

The Financial Services Minister has handled the collapse of the insurance company with all the finesse of the front-row forward he once was at the bottom of a collapsed scrum: head in the mud, legs akimbo and the only sign of life being the steam rising from his brickie's cleavage.

Hockey's problem from the start of this sorry affair was that he wasn't on top of the issue. He attempted to deflect blame - to the industry, to the States, anything to avoid forcing another raid on the budget coffers. By Tuesday he was feeling the media blow-torch over his inability to sense the largest corporate collapse in decades before it had happened; questions about whether HIH's lavish support of the Liberal Party may have played some part in this omission and the issue of why he had been sitting on reforms to make the insurance industry more accountable. And of course the biggest question of all: where would the buck be stopping? And why was the insurance industry getting away scott free?

On Tuesday night, he fronted Mike Munro and before you could say 'it's not my fault' the beads of sweat began appearing around the boofy bloke's chops. By the time Kerry had him in his sites on ABC the bodily fluids were literally dripping off him. Hint #1 - if you are carrying a couple of extra pounds and are about to go under the TV lights, avoid the woolen suit that is two sizes too small. Hint #2 - Avoid promising inquiries if you don't know your boss will back it. Going live to air, you could see Hockey realizing he'd made a botch of it, even as the words left his mouth, code for 'Roll on Royal Commission into Prominent Liberal Contributor' aka 'Kick Me Kim!'

But the one on one encounters were nothing compared to the ignominy of having to stand behind Howard, as he tried to clean up the mess Young Joe had left. As the PM droned, Joe stood one step behind, searching for a hole to fall into. At first he tried nodding in agreement with his boss. As the conference drew he took to staring at the floor, around the room, anywhere to take his mind away from the here and now. Another observation: his arms seemed to long for his suit, giving the impression of the awkward school boy up before the principal. Like we said at the top of the piece, it was almost as though Joe was the naughty child and Howard the embarrassed parent.

We actually knew Joe back in his university days, where the Libs' ideological opposition to student unions did not stop the Big Guy making a successful tilt at power. Joe set up the Campus Party, and ran a campaign based around the use of free beer kegs in the colleges to extract sufficient votes from the sons and daughters of the landed gentry to walk into the student council's top job. There, Joe invented himself into a clean-skin - not affiliated to any political party and the man for the 'average student'.

Joe gained some notoriety through his unconventional use of the Presidential chair and led the charge against the Hawke Government's introduction of student fees. Some of those who marched behind Joe in those heady days and then heard him summon in "a new era of student activism", may have been surprised to see him turn up in a government that has embraced a full-fee agenda and presided over a decrease in the number of Australians receiving a tertiary education.

Nevertheless, Joe had a meteoric rise into politics - winning North Sydney from whatever sad independent took over from Ted Mack, spending the first term of the Howard Government drawing up plans to ensure aircraft did not fly over the MP's electorate, before being catapulted into the second Howard Ministry. As Minister for Financial Services in a laissez faire government, Joe has had the difficult task of trying to regulate the very entities that bankroll his party.

When filling in as Acting Treasurer, he made a celebrated botch of the GST transition - including being able to calculate the levy on a can of Coca Cola - forcing his mate Costello to cut short a holiday and rescue him from the media wolves. He's also spent the past 12 months stalling any move to increase requirements on company directors to prevent them stripping their firms of assets and then leaving their workers without entitlements. So it's hardly been an auspicious start to a political career. If politicians were cars, you'd have to say Joe would be more likely to be competing in the Demolition Derby at Liverpool Speedway than the Grand Prix in Melbourne.

A final Joe story, that also carries a warning. Hockey is overheard on an interstate flight - up in the business section of course - with his mate, the mad Monk. Hockey orders champagne. Abbott turns to him and counsels: "steady on Joe, we won't be kings forever". Big Joe fills up his glass and scoffs triumphantly - "but tonight we are!. Drink up Big Boy, there may not be many more nights to go.

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  Issue 96 contents

»	WorkCover: Della Should Split the Package
»	HIH Workers Win Severance Guarantee
»	Abbott Runs From OEA Failure
»	Angry Musos Aim Riffs at Della
»	Second Prize In The Arnott�s Sell-Out
»	Banks Workers Opt for People Over Pay
»	Bosses Raise Stakes in State Wage Case
»	Refugee Riots Sparked By Strike Action
»	Vodafone Promotes It�s Own
»	Champion Workers Left With Nothing
»	Bid for Reasonable Hours to AIRC
»	Political Economy Courses at Sydney University
»	Activist Notebook

»	The Soapbox
»	The Locker Room
»	Trades Hall
»	Tool Shed

»	New Editorial Guidelines
»	Letter to Canberra
»	A Fowler Smell
»	Who Saved May Day?

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