Hockey slammed for show-off selfies

Joe Hockey didn’t really work out as Federal Treasurer. His attempt at fiscal reform in his first budget failed the politics test and therefore largely failed to be implemented.

His second budget featured a small business stimulus package that failed to do much stimulating and he was sacked from the job as a particularly high-spending, high-taxing, big-borrowing Treasurer, despite all the rhetoric about deficits and debt when he was in opposition.

Now it looks like Hockey has failed to be diplomatic in the first couple of days of his new job as a diplomat.

It’s fair to say Joe’s appointment as Australia’s ambassador to Washington has not been without controversy, whether failing as Treasurer was a good qualification for the job, whether it was a political bribe to get him out of parliament.

So you might wonder if Hockey’s Twitter activity over his very first days in Washington have been a good look when it attracted an immediate social media barrage.

Take this morning’s effort. It’s a pretty picture of a rather grand house, the residence of Australia’s Ambassador to Washington, set in a pristine blanket of snow under clear blue sky, the Australian flag flying in the top left-hand corner.

Our new ambassador is no doubt delighted to share its beauty with his followers and friends. It’s one of a series, including a “snelfie”, Hockey has posted.

It’s coincidental that it was tweeted just as Tony Abbott is back in the headlines, deciding to soldier on as the Member for Warringah, the voters willing.

The immediate social media reaction was mostly unkind. The former Treasurer’s Canberra housing set up has not been forgotten, the taxpayer paying the rent on his wife’s investment property for him.

 

     And neither was his attack on mothers “double dipping” government and private parental leave.

Or his infamous advice about how people could afford to buy a home in Sydney:

As a matter of diplomacy, the dust has yet to settle on the appropriateness of Hockey’s appointment. A little self-awareness might go a long way in the circumstances. Discretion, valour and so forth.

 

 

Michael Pascoe is one of Australia's most respected finance and economics commentators with over four decades in newspaper, radio, television and on-line journalism. He regularly appears on Channel 7's Sunrise and news programs and is a regular conference speaker, MC and facilitator.