Hockey: Not Your Average Joe

by Madonna King

  The big piece of good news in the Budget – the establishment of a Medical Research Future Fund – had come from Joe, after a walk around Woolwich Dock in Sydney. One thought led to another as he reflected on the old seawalls, which had been built in the 1800s as a long-term investment. Joe liked the idea of paying it forward. Maybe we could facilitate structural change, he thought, if the government could prove to the public that it was paying the savings forward for something that would improve their lives in the future, such as medical research. Soon after, around the decision-making table, it would become the 5-cent coin in the Christmas cake that refused to rise; the sunshine that could wrap the Budget coverage in the warmth its authors believed it deserved.

  The test with Joe’s first Budget, former prime minister John Howard observes, doesn’t start and end in 2014. To be successful, it needs to offer strong economic policy from a determined reformist treasurer and a supportive prime minister. ‘He’s very bright. He knows quite well that if he’s seen to promote good policy to handle Australia’s economic challenges, he will be judged kindly. He also knows if he doesn’t, he’ll be judged poorly.’

  Tony Windsor, an Independent MP until his retirement in 2013, says that Joe’s challenge as treasurer is especially difficult because he has never lived on Struggle Street. ‘I get worried when someone becomes an expert on how a guy on $40,000 can raise three kids,’ Windsor says. ‘It’s not a criticism of him. It’s where he comes from. We’re all products of our past.’

  Martin Parkinson, who ends his time as secretary of the Department of Treasury at the close of 2014, says Joe’s success as treasurer will come down to three factors: the vision he creates; how he manages to articulate it; and how ‘brave’ he is in determining policy. He also acknowledges it’s a long-term gig. Parkinson nominates Australia’s top two treasurers as Paul Keating and Peter Costello. ‘Keating would have been successful irrespective of who the prime minister was,’ Parkinson says. ‘I don’t know about Costello.’ Joe’s attempt to push into a new ‘age of responsibility’ shows the beginnings of a plan that neither Keating nor Costello boasted in their first year. ‘It was something they built over time. Hockey’s got as much in year one as they had. The question will be, over time, how much does he become the intellectual leader of the government? Because if he’s the intellectual leader of the government and he’s brave, he will begin to shape the DNA of it.’

  Early one morning, not long before the Budget, Joe, Lovett and Peta Credlin were out cycling. Joe was leading the way when a kangaroo, carrying a joey, jumped onto the path. Joe slammed on the brakes and turned sharply. Voters will have to make the same sharp turn to embrace the Budget. Joe says it will take time, but he’s happy to be judged on whether his plan ‘sets a new direction and helps change the culture from one of entitlement to one of enterprise’. That should be obvious by the next election. ‘But I’d rather have had a go at changing the nation, and for the nation to decide it’s not going with me, than be in a position where I’m just occupying the space,’ he says.

  Credlin says: ‘Everyone comes to government and they assume the office. Whether or not they perform in the office is the secondary question. Joe’s come to the treasurer’s role and particularly this year he’s owning the treasurer’s role. His colleagues are seeing that.’

  Each year, the Federal Budget is cloaked by theatre. Early on this night in 2014, Joe and Cormann were getting their make-up done ahead of a string of media appearances, where they would try and sell their wares to a media pack whose cynicism derives from years of hearing broken promises. Over the following two hours, Joe’s nerves would show – a bead of sweat on the upper lip, a curt reply to a reasonable question, a moment of anger when he heard of how a misunderstanding within the prime minister’s office had meant details of the Medical Research Future Fund were inadvertently given to the media. His eight-year-old son, Xavier, defused it with a hug, not really understanding the import of the moment, when his dad continued to hold the embrace. Joe would love to replicate with his children the relationship he has with his father. Xavier, who had escaped NAPLAN testing at school to hear his dad’s first Budget is more like his father than his siblings are. He hates it when Joe leaves for Canberra, and Joe knows it. He’s away more than he’s at home. Joe had already spoken to his mother and father, who had been unable to make the trip to Canberra. But his father’s words, over the phone, rang in his ears. ‘I love you son,’ Richard told him. ‘But I’ll say a prayer, too.’

  As Joe’s moment in history approached he thought about wearing the light blue tie Abbott had given him as a Budget gift, but his wife Melissa had other ideas. Tonight’s tie, a darker blue, would be the one owned by media advisor Michael Willesee. Outfits sorted, attention turned to Joe’s Budget theme song. Every treasurer has one – the tradition represents a bit of light-hearted fun, and serves to relieve tension as staff work around the clock. Joe only learned this late, and was torn between selecting songs by Canadian rock band Nickelback or US band Foo Fighters. Both options were a long way off Keating’s preference for Mahler, Costello’s classic choice of Marvin Gaye hit ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, and Swan’s fondness for anything by Springsteen. Joe dismisses suggestions for Imagine Dragons’ ‘On Top of the World’. Instead, he humours Xavier with a rendition of American Authors hit ‘Best Day of my Life’; a Dad–son moment that Joe will regret two hours later when the song’s lyrics are repeated back to him by senior journalist Laurie Oakes.

  It won’t be the first time he’s caught out on this night. Following his speech, questions of broken promises and Budget emergencies are raised. Will corporate Australia feel everyone else’s pain? Swan, the last person to deliver such a Budget speech, takes notes, not once looking across the chamber to his successor. Clive Palmer, who along with the other minor parties will determine how much of the Budget gets through the Senate, leaves halfway through Joe’s speech. Joe is undeterred. ‘Prosperity is not a gift,’ he says to cheers from his own side and jeers from those opposite. ‘It needs to be earned … We must always remember that when one person receives an entitlement from the government it comes out of the pocket of another Australian.’ The speech is peppered with the one-liners he offered two weeks earlier, but now they’ve been woven into a narrative that attempts to justify a broken tax pledge, while pacifying those who thought the declared Budget emergency would demand stiffer action. ‘Unless we fix the Budget together, we will leave the next generation a legacy of debt, not opportunity,’ he says in his speech. ‘We are a nation of lifters, not leaners.’

  In reality, the Budget was much softer than Joe would have liked. He wanted changes to pensions made earlier and the deficit levy to net more taxpayers. But Abbott, who chaired each of the expenditure review committee meetings, was taking a much more cautious approach than his treasurer, no doubt with one eye firmly on the reaction of voters. Joe’s soft and cuddly persona had been killed off in Opposition, and he was happy to bury it under the mountain of debt. One conversation highlights that – a closed-door chat in Truss’s office with Liberal Party donor Dick Honan and his son John, who head The Manildra Group, the company that, among other things, produces most of the ethanol in our petrol. Honan had heard that changes were being made to the ethanol subsidy, and was trying to make the point that the company had made crucial decisions based on its continuation. Joe and Honan live a stone’s throw away from each other and like each other. While not close friends, they share the same Liberal philosophy, and on one occasion Joe even relied on Dick Honan to provide facts and figures for a speech he was preparing. But in a Budget battle where a promise was being made to end entitlement across corporate Australia in the same way it would for families receiving welfare help, Joe continued to toe the Party line. ‘No, no, no,’ he had emphasised.

  ‘He wasn’t thumping the table – but it was pretty animated,’ one witness quips. Joe’s point was simple. The age of entitlement did not relate to one group and exclude or protect anoth
er. Everyone needed to hurt a little.

  Two hours after delivering his first Budget, Joe’s television make-up was looking worse for wear as he enjoyed a post-Budget drink, but he wanted to thank the team who had helped put the Budget together. Selling it was not going to be a honeymoon, he told them, especially after the last couple of interviews. ‘We didn’t come here to just occupy these offices,’ he said, ‘but to change the destiny of the nation.’ Abbott walked in as Joe, who had jumped onto a table, repeated what he had told the Party room a couple of hours earlier; that the Budget would not have been possible without the strong support of the prime minister. This acknowledgement is important because of the behind-closed-doors’ tensions that have surfaced since the 2013 election. While they continue to share different views on a range of issues, their partnership remains as strong as any political alliance.

  Abbott returned the favour, jumping up onto the same table. He told the converted that while he and Joe had had scraps in the past, he had not fully appreciated Joe’s strength of character until now. ‘I cannot imagine a stronger and warmer partnership than the one we have enjoyed over the past few months,’ Abbott told the invite-only crowd. Those in attendance say Abbott told everyone that it was ‘Joe’s Budget’. He also made fun of himself: ‘My contribution has been to make your life harder than it would otherwise be by making a whole series of pre-election commitments that you’ve had to delicately tiptoe around.’ He might have a long way to go to measure up to Howard as a prime minister, Abbott told them, but Joe had proved he was a worthy successor to Costello.

  That’s a strong endorsement for Joe as treasurer, but what about as heir apparent? Credlin says both Abbott and Joe are keen not to fall into the Howard-Costello competitive dichotomy. ‘Joe’s absolutely a contender and he’s probably got his head above every other contender, but I think we’re a long way away from saying he’s an heir apparent – and he’d say that, too,’ she says.

  Joe says that if the Abbott government is voted out in the next election he will not spend another stint in Opposition. ‘I couldn’t do that,’ he says. His time will end ‘when I can do no more’. Does he think that will be as treasurer or as prime minister, the job he coveted as an eight-year-old?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘That’s in the hands of others.’

  Within hours, some of those others, predictably, were already pulling apart his first Budget; and in the process, determining how much of a downpayment it would be on his hope of changing a nation, and of fulfilling the dreams Richard Hockey held for his baby son almost 50 years ago.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  IT’S THE UNEXPECTED tracks you venture down in life that make it so interesting, and the research for this book has been filled with winding paths, stunning vistas, roundabouts and dead ends; all part of the journey to understanding Joseph Benedict Hockey. Inevitably, there are important signposts you later forget to acknowledge, and my apologies up-front to those who are not mentioned by name, but helped guide me along the way. Thanks also to those politicians, advisors, state and federal public servants, friends and colleagues who were happy to enhance my understanding, but who would be unhappy to see their names in print. This story is better for having listened to you.

  Following almost 300 interviews for this book, people stand out for different reasons. Joe’s wife, Melissa Babbage, who spent hours with me despite having much better things to do, is one of them. Melissa’s razor sharp mind is behind the Hockeys’ comfortable finances, but that underplays the huge role she plays in his professional success. Joe’s advisors and staff – particularly Grant Lovett, Angela Scirpo and Alistair Campbell – can now share a quiet drink, pleased that I won’t appear at the doorway with ‘just one more question’. Grant Lovett gave up a lucrative job in corporate Australia to run Joe’s office, and the government is better for it. Scirpo, Joe’s unflappable executive assistant, should be poached for her multi-skilling as much as her contact book. The same goes for Alistair Campbell, whose recollection and research skills would add crucial value to any office-bearer’s toolkit. There are others, such as Tony Ritchie, who escaped soon after Joe was elected, but not before I could corner them, along with Tony Pearson, Gemma Daley and Creina Chapman. Peta Credlin, Tony Abbott’s chief-of-staff, also deserves special mention – each time I walked out of her office I wondered what the country would be like if we could only entice such articulate and strategic decision-makers from behind the scenes to run for public office.

  Joe has been working in federal Parliament for almost two decades and the list of current and former MPs and Senators who assisted my research is long. I’d like to acknowledge Prime Minister Tony Abbott, John Howard, Peter Costello, Brendan Nelson (whose recall of specific events, dates and times was unmatched), Bob Hawke, Alexander Downer, Nick Minchin, Jamie Briggs, John Fahey, Don Harwin, George Souris, Jonathan O’Dea and Peter Collins – Joe’s story benefits from your inclusion. Thanks also to the dozens of others who are not mentioned here by name, but offered recollections and analyses.

  Public servants are used to politicians stealing the limelight, and most of them prefer it that way. That means the views of those who were happy to speak publicly made an invaluable contribution to giving Joe’s story more depth. Particularly, I’d like to thank out-going Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson, former secretary of the NSW Treasury Michael Lambert, Allan Fels and the heads of those departments Joe led since his election in 1996. In addition, almost every chief-of-staff, policy and media advisor who has worked in Joe’s offices over the years added their colour to his life story. Their insights have allowed me to take readers inside the decision-making process, and I appreciate it. A particular thank you to Rod Whithear, who was Joe’s chief-of-staff when he was human services minister – your note-taking, photographs, and CD records took days off my research timetable.

  Joe Aston, the Australian Financial Review’s ‘Rear Window’ correspondent, makes the point in these pages that Joe has a lot of friends at the top end of town. Some of them have worked for him, others haven’t, but their candid comments have helped tell Joe’s story outside Parliament. Matt Hingerty, Trent Zimmerman, Andrew Lumsden, Stephen Forshaw, John Brogden, Nick Greiner, John Singleton and John O’Neill deserve special mention, as does Joe’s closest friend, Andrew Burnes. Andrew is the founder and CEO of the AOT Group, and rarely would Joe make a big decision in his life – personal or professional – without chatting to Andrew, and the loyalty runs both ways. Although suspicious of me at first, Andrew eventually allowed me to see the Joe that others might not. Max Moore-Wilton and Roger Corbett are two of those, both having had run-ins with Joe, but still giving freely to this project – thank you. Joe stays in touch with more than a dozen friends whom he started school with at St Aloysius’ College and their chats have been full of laughter (and good photographs!). My special thanks go to Jeremy Melloy and Lewis Macken. Peter FitzSimons took the time to offer me the benefit of his wisdom in both planning this book and writing it – thank you – I genuinely appreciate it.

  The real star in these pages is not Joe, but his father Richard Hockey, whose own life is deserving of a book. It was Richard’s determination for a better life, his business acumen and plain hard work that provided the springboard his son often needed. Richard didn’t share the life of privilege he gave his son, and even talking about it still hurts. He did talk though, because I asked, and I finish this book with an enormous amount of respect for him, and gratitude that he let me inside his front door. I hope my friendship with both Richard and Beverley, Joe’s mother, endures. Joe, too, deserves a mention. I penned him a note a year ago, after completing another biography, requesting his involvement in this project. He said yes, and dealing with him has genuinely been as simple as that. He hasn’t tried to pull a word of this story, nor influence my view, other than the political spin most reporters are adept at ignoring. His aim, from the beginning, has been to show people who he is, where he has come from and what he stands for. I hope t
hese pages do that.

  One other bloke deserves a mention, and that’s David Fagan, my husband. He may have signed up for that job, but during this project he acted as so much more: editor, ideas merchant, questioner, devil’s advocate, driver and butler (not to mention tea- and gin-maker). I couldn’t love him more. The same goes for our young daughters, Madison and Siena, whose acceptance of ‘Joe Hockey’ as the excuse for missed sports days and bedtimes gave me enormous latitude.

  And finally, to that small, talented group at University of Queensland Press who take an idea and mould it into something exciting and real. It is fortunate to have Madonna Duffy as its publisher, and I’m blessed to have her as my friend. She is inspirational, caring, supportive and tough; everything a top publisher should be. Recognition should also go to her team, especially Jacqueline Blanchard, who balances fine editing with a menu of molly-coddling, support and suggestions, and Bettina Richter and Meredene Hill whose ideas and skills bring it all to life. Thank you; I know it takes more than an author to produce a book.

  INDEX

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