Australia is Angry at Joe Hockey For Being An Elitist Jerk

During an interview yesterday with ABC Brisbane, Treasurer Joe Hockey gave what, in hindsight, was a fairly pisspoor justification of the increased fuel excise, saying that more expensive petrol really only affects higher-income people, and the rest should just deal with it …or something.

“The people that actually pay the most are higher income people,” he said. “Yet, the Labor Party and the Greens are opposing it. They say you’ve got to have wealthier people or middle-income people pay more. Well, change to the fuel excise does exactly that; the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.”

His statement came across as something of a casual “fuck you” to low and middle income earners and families who do drive great distances and do feel that gnawing dread at the ever-increasing cost of a full tank. Even the normally Hockey-friendly Daily Telegraph have turned on “chauffer-driven” Treasurer for being out of touch with working families.

“Western Sydney battlers, who face the city’s gridlocked motorways each day, may be stunned by Mr Hockey’s revelations,” they said. When the Telegraph starts invoking battlers, you know shit’s about to get real.

Twitter got on the case, and in no time at all, the #PoorPeopleNever hashtag was trending, as people mocked the Treasurer, taking him to task in fairly sarcastic fashion, pointing out certain elements of hypocrisy in his stance.

#poorpeoplenever get taxpayers to fund trips to inspect their investment properties. Oh wait…poor people don’t own investment properties

— FOI Central (@FOIcentric) August 13, 2014

#PoorPeopleNever Get $60,000 Secret Scholarships “@otiose94: Get PAID to attend weddings”

— Ross Bowler (@BowlerBarrister) August 13, 2014

#PoorPeopleNever go on holidays to Fiji instead of negotiating the national budget #auspol

— Dame Nellie (@woolkebb) August 13, 2014

#PoorPeopleNever #auspol collect LIFETIME Pensions after ~ 6-8 yrs work

— Sir Plus (@otiose94) August 13, 2014

#PoorPeopleNever disguise their donations to the Liberal Party by laundering cash through third party entities.

— Paul Syvret (@PSyvret) August 13, 2014

More expensive fuel means more expensive transport, which means more expensive food, which means … my head kinda hurts. 

Does Joe Hockey realise that fuel excise increases will also hit food prices amongst other items. Poor people don’t eat #PoorPeopleNever

— Catherine Cranston (@CatCranston) August 14, 2014

Hockey himself has dug in, and this morning, is doing a media blitz defending his comments, apologising if he sounded “callous” but stressing that everything he said was based on “facts”. He also said he has “no regrets” about being seen chomping cigars before the delivery of the last budget, in spite of the many “fat cat” jokes it inspired.

“Everyone keeps talking about how politicians are sometimes phoney, I mean, I am what I am,” he told one interviewer, at which point, a comedy-sized pair of sunglasses descended onto his face and the words “Deal With It” appeared in large, flickering letters.