Mocking, abusing or vilifying Labor leaders is morally repugnant. Mocking, abusing or vilifying Liberal leaders is cool. Such is the philosophical bent of what passes for the Left in Australia these days.

Last week saw a visiting American heavy metal band decapitate on stage a man dressed as Tony Abbott. It was a pantomime stunt as unoriginal as any of their highly derivative punk music; they have previously decapitated George Bush and Barack Obama among others, so Mr Abbott was in good company. Yet as Fake Tony’s fake blood spurted across the audience and the band played to an ecstatic crowd, what was even louder than their unoriginal compositions was the deafening silence of the left-wing commentariat.

Indeed, immediately on Twitter, those whom Andrew Bolt likes to call the ‘ferals’ were showing off their keen intellect and sense of proportion, with witty comments such as ‘shame it can’t happen in the flesh’ and ‘Awesome! If only that was how citizens still dealt with rouge [sic] heads of state.’ We assume the tweeter meant ‘rogue’, but rouge has an unintended quirkiness to it.

Throughout Julia Gillard’s disastrous tenure in the Lodge, these types railed against the personal abuse that was heaped upon our first female prime minister. Sometimes — as in the case of Perth shock jock Howard Sattler — they were justified. And certainly, if you chose to go looking for it on obscure and dodgy web sites, there was plenty of hate and vitriol — as there always is, with any controversial politician or public figure, particularly in the era of social media.

Yet from such internet sludge, the likes of Anne Summers and John McTernan sanctimoniously attempted to weave a ‘victim’ narrative whereby it was ‘unprecedented sexist vilification’ that brought down Ms Gillard rather than, say, her own incompetence, wastefulness or mendacity. Meanwhile, efforts were made to taint Tony Abbott with being complicit in the ‘Ditch the Witch’ sign that he carelessly allowed himself to be pictured near at an anti-carbon tax rally. This, via some bizarre logic, wound up forming the basis of Ms Gillard’s self-pitying and wholly self-serving ‘misogyny’ rant.

These moral guardians can’t have it both ways. Inciting personal hatred of political figures, of whatever hue, is unacceptable. Yet since Mr Abbott came to power, the usual suspects, including even at allegedly grown-up newspapers, have wallowed in vilifying him with ‘F— Tony Abbott’ T-shirts, banners calling for him to be hanged, endless abuse on Twitter and so on.

We ourselves at The Spectator Australia have had unpleasant experiences with the hate and vitriol of extremists online. After guest appearances on the public broadcaster and in the Fairfax press, we all too often receive emotional and vitriolic outbursts in the form of anonymous emails and tweets, many of them in ALL CAPS (which suggests the hyperfrenetic state of these weirdos) and some uttering the most disgusting and even violent insults. Let’s hope Nye Bevan was just being satirical when he declared that ‘politics is a blood sport’.

World’s Greatest Treasurer (continued)

As contributors to these pages know, the quickest way to get a giggle over the last few years was out of three simple words: World’s Greatest Treasurer.

The idea that an Australian finance minister should have tickets enough on himself to swan off to the G20 and lecture them on how his Norman Lindsay-esque approach to perpetual fiscal gorging — Magic Puddingonomics — was one they should all adopt was entertaining enough. But when a euro-rag decided to reward such fantasies with the aforementioned three-word title, the laughter went off the meter. Mr Swan’s foolishness was only equalled by Kevin Rudd’s earlier assertion that his high-spending, social-democratic profligacy would ‘save capitalism from itself’.

Joe Hockey’s stewardship of the recent G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors discussions in Sydney took the opposite approach. Rather than saying you could have it all, as Mr Swan had done, Mr Hockey talked of creating jobs through growth and productivity-enhancing workplace reform. Rather than pronouncing the ‘death of neoliberalism’, as Mr Rudd had done, our federal treasurer shifted the global agenda firmly in line with his own ‘end of the age of entitlements’ ethos. Even the communiqué itself from this weekend’s meeting bore the hallmarks of a more pared-down, thriftier approach, devoid of the Rudd/Swan verbiage and waffle of yore.

Mr Hockey’s federal budget in May, and the final G20 summit in Brisbane in November, will provide the Treasurer with twin opportunities to put his money where his mouth is. We can’t wait.