One of the real curiosities of this election has been the way that - in the absence of what might be considered attractive leadership credentials from either of the Prime Ministerial candidates - so much of the focus has shifted down the chain and on to the secondary ministers. It seems like barely a day goes by without the whole gang trouping down to the Canberra Press Club to witness yet another bare knuckle policy throwdown between a Cabinet minister and their Opposition counterpart. So, who are these people? Where did they come from? What do they stand for? And what is that horrific odour?... Oh. Oh, that's me.

Treasury



  Joe "Ice" Hockey vs Wayne "Graceful Like A" Swan

Holding vice-like on to the purse strings of the nation is the grand daddy of portfolios, so those we entrust with this sacred duty are usually positioned directly behind the Prime Minister. Mainly so that they are in prime position to assassinate Dear Leader if the situation calls for it. Indeed, Australian political history is filled with inspirational stories of those Treasurers who murdered their way in to the Prime Ministership (see Keating, Paul), those who tried to murder their way into the Prime Ministership (see Howard, John) and those who could have but just kinda hung out instead (see Costello, Peter). So a debate between two prospective Treasurers is a thing to be observed closely, because you never know when they might choose to storm the fort and, if Family First are to be believed, brutally murder the sitting Leader of the Party.



Wayne Swan

Swan, while not Rudd's primary assassin, was certainly a beneficiary of the man's downfall, an event which elevated him from lowly third wheel to second-in-command of the Federal Government. He's been kicking around Parliament since 1993 but had spent his time there lingering about on the backbench, only entering the Ministry after being given the Treasury (the role, not the building) upon Rudd's election in 2007. Given the sense of financial cataclysm that was beginning to pervade the air three years ago, this role quite easily could have become the veritable poisoned chalice, but instead Swan took the challenge head-on and refashioned it into a veritable... good chalice. Ah, metaphor. All up, he's had a fairly good run as Treasurer, insulated from the worst of the latter-day Rudd catastrophes by virtue of the fact that, in spite of all the other shit going awry, the economy just kept on keeping on. This being Australia - a country blessed with an absurd amount of natural resources - that's not particularly remarkable, but perhaps goes some way to explaining the often enduring popularity/resilience of Treasurers, even when the rest of their party is falling apart around them.

Conclusion: Not particularly flashy and perhaps had his personality suppressed for the last few years by the intensity of the Rudd/Gillard duo, but nonetheless appears generally quite competent. Hard to see him picking up the Prime Ministership if Gillard bails/is taken out, but stranger things have happened (see Howard, John).

Joe Hockey

Hockey is relatively new to his standing as Shadow Treasurer, picking up the position only after a visibly struggling Julie Bishop was gently nudged aside by her party in February last year. Although she still managed to hold on to the Deputy Leadership, leaving Hockey roughly where Swan was up until two months ago. There was a brief moment last year where it looked like Hockey himself had a chance of assuming the leadership, but given the fairly toxic anti-Liberal sentiment circulating at the time I can only imagine he was vaguely relieved not to end up taking that veritable poisoned chalic... position. It's hard to really judge Treasurers without them having any actual control over Australia's money, but it's notable that Hockey is one of the very limited post-Abbott leaders that the Libs have going for them. If, God willing, Abbott loses the election, in all likelihood it's going to be a stoush between Hockey and Turnbull for the post-election leadership. I hope there's mud wrestling.

Conclusion: Seen as broadly likable, not particularly extreme in his views, capable of stringing a sentence together and great at salsa dancing. I'm sure he'd do just fine in the Treasury. But he's no Turnbull.


Foreign Affairs


  
Julie "Bricktop" Bishop vs Stephen "Standard Name" Smith

These two had their debate today. The differences, in a very broad sense, can be characterised as More Asia vs Less Asia, a political split that has maintained pretty evenly for most of the past two decades. Do you want to hang with the US or the UN? The US or Indonesia? China or China? Yeah, everybody loves China. They talked about asylum seekers too, but hey, there's not really any difference on asylum seekers.

Stephen Smith

Smith set out his ministerial credentials during the long, hard Howard years, traversing, in turn, Trade, Energy, Communication, Health, Immigration, Industry and Education. How, after all of that, they finally settled on Foreign Affairs is beyond me, but perhaps they thought he might want to collect the whole set. Given his experience with pretty much every single facet of policy there is to consider, it's perhaps unsurprising that his name has been bandied about as a potential future leader of the Labor party, but for the moment he's sitting pretty on Foreign Affairs. Oh, they gave him Trade again too. Similarly to Wayne Swan, Smith also managed to avoid most of the fallout from Rudd's political implosion, and can look back on three years of occasionally ambitious and generally successful interactions with the outside world. Afghanistan is still a niggling issue (to say the least), China remains a tetchy, albeit profitable business partner (which is hardly unique to Australia) and it's hard to know whether that UN Security Council tilt is going to get anywhere, but all up we've ended this political cycle much as we started: a vaguely entertaining curiosity (I think the phrase they use is "middle power") located somewhere south of Indonesia that just happens to be possessed of novelty-worthy amounts of iron ore. Which is about as much as we can hope for, really. Although, whether he remains Foreign Minister in a newly installed Gillard Government is still open to question, with some (well, Julie Bishop) suggesting he may be replace by Kevin Rudd. Keep in mind: he's still yet to tackle Defence.

Julie Bishop

Bishop is to Party leaders what Smith is to portfolios: she moves through them like bad plumbing. Thing is, she's not all that much like Costello, forever destined to be second-in-charge, because Costello was actually kinda popular in amidst it all. He could have been leader if he wanted to. He just didn't want to. Or was too crap to. But Julie on the other hand just... doesn't have it. There's something about her. Perhaps it's the death stares.


But death stare or not, there's something about Bishop's demeanour that just puts people on edge. You just get the sense that if pushed too far she'd be capable of smashing a bottle, stabbing you to death with it and then feeding you to the pigs. Hence: Bricktop. There have also been various queries about her competence over the years (she was ousted from the Shadow Treasury after six months and was accused of dispersing state secrets earlier this year), but given the tensions that almost assuredly simmer between Abbott, Turnbull and Hockey, she remains wonderfully neutral territory in the upper echelons of the Liberal party. However, if Abbott leaves upon defeat, I could imagine Bishop will too. Three leaders is pushing it, four would just be indulgent. However, if he wins, then she'll be our Hillary Clinton: boldly terrifying leaders from around the globe.