He did not stop the boats and every leak and every rumour regarding the topic suggests he was constantly wishing to increase expenditure and Costello was continually frustrated by Costello. People often cite his gun law reforms as examples of leadership, this is a fiction. Not only was there bipartisan support for it in the parliament but there was overwhelming popular support for the reform, it would have been more courageous for him not to reform it. I've often heard the claim that he showed leadership by taking the GST to an election. Yet multiple sources confirm after reading a bunch of polling, two weeks before the policy launch he sent a memo to Costello's office instructing the Treasurer to reduce the margin from 10% to 8% even though this would mean it wouldn't come close to bridging the gap for the revenues lost through the abolition of indirect state taxes. It was a panicky little display of political cowardice and wisely the Treasurer ignored it. When it came to foreign policy he was woeful, a miserable little lackey of John Howard and George Bush, while his statements about Barrack Obama in 2007 were utterly contemptible, completely unbecoming of a Prime Minister. He lied about children overboard, he was criminally negligent about climate change and the environment and his middle class welfare was little more than pathetic porkbarelling. He was a coward and a political phony, kept in office by the incompetence of Mark Latham and the emotional charge of September 11.
