He was speaking in London to the Institute for Economic Affairs, the same centre-right think tank where he delivered his Age of the End of Entitlement speech when in opposition and said that nothing had changed since warning that societies had to curb entitlement culture in order to make life sustainable.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I am warning our legislators and leaders that it is their entitlement that is the problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Former Treasurer Joe Hockey speaking at the Institute for Economic Affairs in London, Monday, October 23, 2023.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Latika Bourke<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cThe entitlement to hold on to power.<\/p>\n \u201cThe entitlement to be popular no matter what the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n Hockey, who as treasurer proposed a raft of spending cuts and ended government subsidies, killing the domestic car industries, said the majority of his controversial 2014 first budget had gone onto be delivered.<\/p>\n He said that Western democracies had fallen into the deep abyss of populism that made hard decisions between regular elections almost impossible.<\/p>\n Declaring that the United States, where he served as ambassador was \u201cstrangling itself with debt\u201d, he said it could be at risk of defaulting, although stressed that America\u2019s buying power still made it a formidable economy.<\/p>\n He said that the last US government to live within its means was the Clinton administration.<\/p>\n He said that politicians were afraid of making hard decisions when cheap borrowing was available and that populism was rampant and uncontrollable.<\/p>\n Joe Hockey as treasurer in 2015.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Alex Ellinghausen<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cThat sense of entitlement, that you can give people everything they want, is a cancer in our community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will all pay a price.\u201d<\/p>\n Hockey said that there was not much philosophical basis to most modern politicians who he said were mostly populists.<\/p>\n Asked by a member of the audience if the media was to blame, Hockey said it was not and that he was the first to defend freedom of the press.<\/p>\n He stood by some of his more controversial measures including effectively ending the local car industry and slashing public sector jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was bloody hard, you read the letters from them and their families, it was really hard but at the end of the day it had no material impact on the delivery of services.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd where it did, we just went and employed more people.\u201d<\/p>\n He also stood by his failed attempt to introduce a GP co-payment saying that Britain\u2019s almost broken NHS, which has a waiting list of 7 million people, was an example of how failing to make public services sustainable only ended up hurting the poor.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce again, an entirely publicly funded system, with no means testing, does not meet the community\u2019s needs and expectations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd yet it is politically toxic to suggest that there should be an affordable means tested co-payment to sustain and improve the service.<\/p>\n \u201cApparently feeling good about a \u2018free\u2019 entitlement is more important than the health outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n Once again, the people that lose out the most are those that need the most. Wealthy people can get around the failures of a broken public health system by purchasing private medical treatment.<\/p>\n But Hockey, who now runs his own strategic advisory firm Bondi Partners, said that since leaving public life, he had discovered that the bureaucracy in big business was far worse than the public service.<\/p>\n Get a note directly from our foreign <\/i><\/b>correspondents <\/i><\/b>on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. <\/i><\/b>Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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