When acting as part of a constructive, two-person team with the Prime Minister, the office-holder can make for a formidable combination – think here Keating and Hawke, Costello and Howard.

Treasurers come in three varieties: good, bad, and accidental. The good and bad are self-explanatory, but the accidental moneyman is the one put into the position with nary a clue but holding down the exalted role for accidental reasons.

After all those years in the political wilderness, the election of the Whitlam government in 1972 was a seminal event. There was a weird interregnum when Whitlam and his deputy Lance Barnard held all the ministerial portfolios before honest Frank Crean became the treasurer. He was there for factional reasons and for long and dedicated service to the party. He had briefly been a tax accountant but spent most of his working life in state and federal politics. He was a kind and decent person who was completely overwhelmed by the economic challenges facing the ambitious – nay, reckless – new government. (Whatever you might think of Whitlam, it has to be conceded that economics was not his strong suit.)

Crean was an accidental treasurer whose budgets were essentially determined by others, particularly the hard-left and devious Jim Cairns. He ran rings around Crean and Crean’s last budget was effectively owned by Cairns.

As Australia’s next treasurer, Cairns was most definitely a bad moneyman. He even attempted to circumvent appropriate government protocols to do a deal with that spiv from the Middle East, Tirath Khemlani. If it were not for some honest brokers in Treasury, including Sir Frederick Wheeler, Australia would have been on the hook for a large sum of money on exorbitant terms. Whitlam had no choice but to sack Cairns.

The next treasurer was Bill Hayden who was accidental but potentially good. His term came too late and any actions he took had only marginal effects before the Whitlam era came to an end. Interestingly, Hayden accepted the new paradigm, conceding that the days of Australia being an inward, protected country must end. He was even attracted to the wisdom of Milton Friedman.

Cigar-smoking Phil Lynch was the first treasurer in the Fraser government. He was an ardent protectionist, always keen to hand out bespoke favours to his industry mates. To be sure, he oversaw a reining in of excessive government spending inherited from Whitlam but overall, he was bad.

John Howard was the next treasurer and while he showed potential, he was hampered by the overbearing Fraser. Like Hayden, Howard understood that there was ultimately no choice but to free up the economy. He also realised that our centralised, inflexible industrial relations system would need to be reformed. But Fraser wasn’t having a bar of the new thinking. Howard was also a bad treasurer although he can be partly forgiven.

Paul Keating was our next treasurer, a person who had left school early and had no formal training in economics. Initially, he assumed a relatively low profile, assiduously learning from the top-quality Treasury bureaucrats of that era. Under Hayden, he had come to accept the case for nurturing an open and dynamic economy and he carried this mindset into his role as top moneyman.

Keating was a good treasurer: he oversaw the floating of the dollar; the lifting of capital controls; the deregulation of the financial system; cuts to tariffs and other protective measures; tax reform; privatisation; and reining in government spending in the late 1980s.

His term required courage, attention to detail, and sustained communication explaining what was going on and the likely consequences. He was supported in this task by the very able prime minister, Bob Hawke, who effectively acted as chairman of the board.

Was Keating’s term as treasurer flawless? Given that he held the office for over eight years, there were clearly some mistakes made and missteps taken. Towards the end of his term, his judgment faltered as he told us that we were having a recession ‘we had to have’ and then belatedly threw far too much money at the economy attempting to stimulate it. He was also a terrible prime minister.

I can quickly pass over Ralph Willis and John Kerin, both accidental treasurers who left no lasting legacies at all. We all remember Kerin because he forgot what GOS stood for – gross operating surplus – and moved the Budget Speech to the afternoon one year.

John Dawkins was also treasurer for a while, handing down two budgets. But he was clearly under prime minister Keating’s thumb and can be marked as bad.

The youthful Peter Costello was appointed treasurer in 1996. He was a good, long-standing treasurer. He pulled public finances into a manageable state, he implemented massively complicated tax reform – the GST – replacing a slew of other taxes and lowering income tax rates – and he created the Future Fund. Having two good treasurers effectively in a row (forget the temporary inmates) stood the Australian economy in very good stead for a long time, particularly with respect to productivity growth.

Along came Wayne Swan – he was a bad treasurer. He overreacted to the Global Financial Crisis and was never able to repair the fiscal position notwithstanding his promise to do so. And who can forget his botched attempt to introduce the mining tax? Chris Bowen was the top moneyman for a nanosecond so we can put him down as accidental.

Joe Hockey was mainly bad. His disastrous 2014 Budget set back the cause of sensible fiscal management many years as he chucked in multiple, unannounced measures most of which never passed the Senate. He didn’t last long.

Morrison was also a bad treasurer. Think here of the ‘Cry Me a River’ bank levy and the radical changes to the taxation of superannuation. Josh Frydenberg had to deal with the fallout of Covid but must be judged a failure because of his ridiculous 2022 Budget when it was clear inflationary pressures were building, and the unjustified cut to petrol excise he implemented leading up to the election.

Finally, we come to Jimbo. He had been shadow treasurer and, after all, Swanny’s chief of staff. That must count for something. At this stage, he is showing all the signs of becoming a bad treasurer, notwithstanding his good luck in having extraordinarily high commodity prices filling up his coffers. His idea of ‘reform’ is the equivalent of Keating or Costello brushing their teeth – absolutely routine stuff of no substance.

He has little effective control over other ministers who are wreaking havoc on various parts of the economy. You only have to look at the decline in productivity to appreciate that we’re in a potential hole.

So good, bad, or accidental? Sadly, mainly bad. But you only need a few good ones to hang around for a while. Let us pray.