IMO John Howard was an abysmal failure as Treasurer in the late 1970s & early 1980s. He was never in the race to be considered even a competent financial manager, bequeathing as he did an antiquated, unproductive, forelock-tugging economy in all sorts of trouble that Hawke & Keating had to recover, modernise & refocus towards Asia.
As PM, Howard was repeatedly criticised by the RBA for increasing upper middle class welfare - a major factor in the RBA's decision to keep jacking up interest rates until our economy stumbled under their weight into the jaws of the GFC.
By the time Howard & Costello exited Australian consumers had become the most indebted on Earth - IMO encouraged to spend like drunken sailors with their backs turned to Costello's approaching economic tsunami.
While fast rail & high speed broadband systems were being built overseas Howard & Costello sat on their hands instead of using the gains from the commodities boom to ready our economy for the next great leap forward. Consequently, some 30 years after it was first investigated Australia still has snail rail & dodobird broadband.
IMO Peter Costello wears some of that responsibility. Then there was his idiotic baby bonus. Of course the sale of our gold reserves on his watch remains one of Australia's dumbest financial decisions.
IMO though, Costello deserves some credit for ensuring relative stability, surplus budgets & improving the Fed Govt.'s bottom line. Pity it took the proceeds of the Commodities Boom, that mother of all taxes even those without incomes now pay [GST], the fire sale of public assets such as Telstra, the strangulation of state finances & of course our pensioners to pay for it.
Then again, it appears that our wealthiest 1% think they did a wonderful job.
