Sorry for being burdened with an education that featured the dark art known as 'economics' mate, but anybody who knows anything about economic cycles understands the effects of elevated economic activity on budget balances.
Howard and Costello plundered the budget windfall and created a structural deficit (which the current government is obviously blaming their opponent on - hard to man up when you have no morals), and Keating's deficit came from the last recession the country had (which hasn't been repeated largely due to his and Hawke's inspired leadership).
Even if you don't understand that (to be fair, a lot of people on this board don't), you can't tout them as great economic managers (and Keating as a poor one) if you can't actually point to reforms which helped the budget.
The crux of it is there was one moderate reform under Howard and Costello (GST), as opposed to the string of major reforms under Hawke and Keating (floating the dollar, fixing the tax system in favour of earning income rather than passively accumulating it) the wages Accord, the deregulation of the banking system, the superannuation system (which created the financial market you're on HotCopper to discuss), and the scrapping of tariffs).
I seriously don't know how you people possess the cognitive dissonance to argue against such bare facts.
