I think that while you'll find the Howard Government bdidn't run big enough surpluses during the latter years of the resources boom, it's been Labor in government that's failed to adequately respond on the expenditure side of the ledger in response to reduced revenue growth while in government in order to balance the books.
Lets not forget that the last three years of Coalition tax cuts were implemented under a Labor government during the GFC. Peter Costello was right when he said that if surpluses weren't handed out as tax cuts, Labor would waste the money when in office. Labor has still managed to waste billions anyway.
Howard and Costello are held up as being marvelous economic managers. Abbott uses this belief to imply that he will also be a great economic manager.
I have a lot of issue with this claim because:
* The halving of CGT caused massive house price inflation.
* The increased cost of housing has made the economy far more vulnerable to shocks.
* The increased cost of housing has a huge impact on the quality of life for those with a mortgage - higher than would need be - and renters - rents higher than need be. This is a huge drain on the economy as we now devote far to much of national income to support the over priced housing.
* Flow on effect of the CGT changes is govt revenue is depleted by ~ $5-8B a year due to NG
* By running too small surpluses interest rates were higher than needed.
* Higher interest rates were one of the major causes of the AUD being so over valued which has caused much more damage to the non resource sectors of the economy than needed to occur. The hollowing out of many sectors may be permanent due to this.
* Foreign debt is probably $2-300B higher than it needs to be due to the excessive pricing of housing in this country, along witht eh associated debt boom the house price inflation caused - remember CBAs 'equity mate" adds?
Focusing just on debt as the only indication of good Governence is wrong. The explosion of middle class welfare under Howard was destructive to the economy. He took a temporary jump in the ToT and made permanent increases in Govt outlays and large cuts to Govt revenue. Labor were stupid to go intot he 2007 election promising the last 3 tax cuts, but Howard and Costello wear some of the blame for suggesting them in teh first place.
What would have been better to have been done is run the surpluses they did, and topped this up with either direct payments into super accounts or set up a SWF as a rainy day insurance policy for when it was needed. This would have increased national savings, helped to limit the interest rate increased we had, kept the AUD at a more realistic vauation, helped the rest of the economy have an easier adjustment to the resource boom, limited the hollowing out of manufacturing and made the current budget situation a lot easier to handle.
Remember Howard kept on spending even when the RBA was raising interest rates as inflation was getting out of control. A good economic manager would have set fiscal policy to be in step with monetary policy. Howard was actually fighting the RBA and we saw mortgage interest rates peak at around 9% due to this.
So I really hope Abbott shows more restraint that the Howard Govt, but so far that's not looking likely. His 10 year "plan" will be hard to achieve because it will require a level of fiscal discipline that NO Govt has ever shown.