Fact check scorecard: How does Joe Hockey's record of claims and promises stack up?

Updated

ABC Fact Check has been keeping tabs on Joe Hockey's claims since its establishment, shortly before the 2013 election.

As opposition treasury spokesman, Mr Hockey was highly critical of the Labor government's economic management and integrity.

"It's time for Labor to stop the falsehoods and stop the scares," Mr Hockey said in a media release before the election.

Five days after Tony Abbott was deposed as prime minister by Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Hockey announced that he would not seek a place in the new ministry and that he intended to resign from the House of Representatives.

"I will have more to say in due course, but for the sake of my young family - to whom I owe so much - I have decided to bring my parliamentary career to a close," he said.

So now that Mr Hockey's tenure as treasurer is at an end, how do his claims stack up?

The record

Out of the 13 claims made by Mr Hockey that Fact Check tested, one was made in opposition and 12 during his term as treasurer.

Fact Check determined only one (7.69 per cent) to be an "in the green" or positive verdict.

Mr Hockey received negative, or "in the red", verdicts for three claims (23.08 per cent) and "in between" verdicts for nine of them (69.23 per cent).

The only claim for which Mr Hockey was determined to be in the green was related to his treasury portfolio.

Mr Hockey claimed: "Labor left us with the fastest growth in spending of anyone in the world... and they left us with the third highest growth in debt of anyone in the top 17."

When claims not relating to the treasury portfolio are removed from the count, Mr Hockey's record for accuracy slightly improves.

Out of the nine claims Fact Check tested on the subject, Mr Hockey returned two negative verdicts (22.22 per cent) and six in between verdicts (66.67 per cent).

Mr Hockey's one positive verdict made up 11.11 per cent of verdicts in this area.

Compared with his leader

Further interesting comparisons can be made when Mr Hockey's verdict record is stacked up against that of his former leader, Tony Abbott.

Fact Check compiled Mr Abbott's verdict record in September, 2015.

Thirty-four of Mr Abbott's claims were tested over the same period of time.

Mr Hockey returned a lower percentage of positive verdicts than Mr Abbott, who returned four (11.76 per cent) verdicts in the green.

But he also attracted a smaller percentage of negative verdicts than his former leader - Mr Abbott returned 11 (32.25 per cent) in the red.

Like Mr Hockey, the bulk of Mr Abbott's claims returned in between verdicts.

However, Mr Abbott scored a lower percentage of these verdicts than Mr Hockey, with 19 (55.88 per cent) verdicts.

A penchant for exaggeration

As the chief salesman for the Government's economic agenda, Joe Hockey made a number of claims in the public domain which he used to support his arguments for reform.

The vast majority of these claims were found by Fact Check to be in the in between category.

Analysis of these nine verdicts shows that six of these verdicts (66.66 per cent) were given labels that indicated that the claims that Mr Hockey made were exaggerated.

The verdicts used were: "overblown", "over-egged", "overstated" and "exaggerated".

Verdicts using these words made up just under half (46.15 per cent) of all of Mr Hockey's claims that were tested.

Most clicked

Mr Hockey's most popular claim on our website (the one which received the most visitors) was about electricity savings from the abolition of the carbon tax.

He claimed that "electricity prices have come down $550 per household as a result of us abolishing the carbon tax".

Fact Check determined this claim to be wrong.

Click left and right below to explore Mr Hockey's most popular claims online.

A torrent of debate

Mr Hockey's claims are some of our most popular on social media, generating more activity and discussion than Mr Abbott.

On Facebook, his most popular fact check was once again his claim about electricity savings in relation to the abolition of the carbon tax.

It generated much activity on the social network, with 17,840 comments, likes and shares.

This number eclipses MrAbbott's most popular claim on Facebook almost five-fold.

Mr Abbott garnered 3,180 comments, likes and shares for his claim on whether it was an offence to criticise a sitting royal commissioner.

On Twitter, Mr Hockey's most popular fact check was on income tax.

Mr Hockey claimed that Australian workers "spend the first six months of the year working for the Government with tax rates nearly 50 cents in the dollar".

Fact Check found this claim to be incorrect.

The claim attracted 268 re-tweets, 111 favourites and 37 replies.

Promise Tracker: No tax increases

ABC Fact Check's Promise Tracker has been tracking, and continues to track, 78 of the Coalition's promises which were made prior to the 2013 election.

Each promise is assigned a status of either delivered, broken, in progress or stalled.

At the time of writing, of the promises that were tracked, 16 were delivered, 14 were broken, 40 were in progress and eight were stalled.

One of the most important promises related to Mr Hockey's role as treasurer was the Coalition's promise of no tax increases.

His first budget handed down in May, 2014 contained a temporary levy on higher income earners, a medicare co-payment for GP visits and an increase in the fuel excise.

In an interview with ABC's 7:30 program shortly after the 2014-15 budget, Mr Hockey conceded that the budget contained increases in taxes:

Sarah Ferguson (host): You know that a co-payment, a levy and a tax are all taxes by any other name. Am I correct?

Joe Hockey: Of course they are. Yes.

Sarah Ferguson: So there are new taxes in your Budget?

Joe Hockey: There are increases in taxes.

Fact Check considered this promise broken when the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014 passed both houses of Parliament on June 17, 2014.

Promise Tracker: Abolish the mining tax

A victory on the promise front for Mr Hockey was the delivery of the Coalition's promise to abolish the mining tax.

The battle to repeal the former Labor government's Mineral Resource Rent tax was long and hard fought by the Coalition, with the Senate presenting a major obstacle to its delivery.

Eventually, the Coalition was able to negotiate the abolition and associated savings measures through the Senate, as explained in Mr Hockey's supplementary explanatory memorandum.

Notable savings measures attached to the bill included abolishing the school kids bonus, re-phasing the superannuation guarantee increase and abolishing the low income superannuation contribution.

Fact Check considered this promise to be delivered when the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2014 was passed by the Senate on September 2, 2014.

Promise Tracker: Achieve a surplus of 1pc of GDP by 2023

Less successful has been the Coalition's promise to achieve a budget surplus of 1 per cent of GDP by 2023.

The promise involved turning a deficit inherited from Labor of 1.9 per cent of GDP into a surplus of 1 per cent.

When Mr Hockey released his first Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook on December 17, 2013, he was optimistic, saying "today is the first step" in the Coalition's plan to get the budget "back on track".

But he also said that Labor was blocking $20 billion in savings.

The outlook document forecast a deficit of $47 billion, or 3 per cent of GDP, for the year to June 30, 2014.

The final budget outcome for that year, however, showed that the deficit turned out to be $48.5 billion, or 3.1 per cent of GDP.

Subsequently, the final budget outcome for financial year 2014-15 was a $38 billion deficit, or 2.4 per cent of GDP.

In the most recent budget for 2015-16 a deficit of $35.1 billion, or 2.1 per cent of GDP, for the year to June, 2016 was estimated.

Whilst the most recent deficit, for 2014-15, is smaller than the previous year, it is still larger than the 1.9 per cent of GDP deficit that the Coalition inherited, and at the time of writing Fact Check considers the promise to be stalled.

Promise Tracker: 1 million new jobs in five years

A prominent promise before the election was the Coalition's pledge to generate 1 million new jobs in five years.

The Coalition's Real Solutions Plan, released in January 2013, said: "We will generate one million new jobs over the next five years and two million new jobs within a decade by growing a bigger, more productive and prosperous economy."

Mr Hockey re-iterated this plan on Network TEN's Meet the Press in February of that year: "We've got a four-point economic plan that delivers a stronger and more prosperous economy - aiming to create 1 million new jobs in the first five years."

Labour force estimates produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show 11,472,300 people were employed in September 2013, when the Coalition came to office.

The latest labour force figures for August 2015 show employment has increased to 11,765,400 people, an increase of 293,100.

Unemployment, however, has risen in this time, from 5.7 per cent in September 2013 to 6.3 per cent in August 2015.

As the deadline for this promise has not yet elapsed and jobs have increased since the Coalition came to office, Fact Check considers this promise to be in progress.

Topics: government-and-politics, liberals, economic-trends, australia

First posted