Abbott leaves himself exposed by choice of shadow ministers

It was not a good week for Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott.

Former Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull rises to his feet and takes a scalpel to the Coalition's greenwash climate change policy and, in full election mode, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey declares to anyone who would listen;"There is a very clear message to the Rudd Government from the Reserve Bank: Stop spending so much money (or) interest rates will rise" only to be knocked down by every blogger capable of reading what the Reserve Bank had really said.

Tony Abbott weathered the very public Turnbull defection and that whopper from his #1 protegee only to be faced with this:

Let me see if I'm getting this right because, you know, things move by at pace. First up, shadow treasury spokesman Joe Hockey took the obvious course when confronted by a growing perception that the conservatives were losing ground in the revered 'preferred economic manager' category of the national polls: He appeared on commercial television clutching a pink tutu and a magic wand. This was an approach clearly designed to offer a point of colourful comparison that made 'maverick' opposition finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce look a little more greyly bankerish and restrained.

Just after Shadow Minister Finance and #2 boy Barnaby Joyce, red faced and almost incoherent, came out with a real jaw dropper when he claimed that Australia was in danger of not being able to meet its sovereign debt leading to this online new excerpt:
Economists have joined the Federal Government in branding Senator Joyce's comments irresponsible, especially at a time when financial markets are jittery and overseas investors might take his comments seriously.
Credit ratings agencies that monitor sovereign risk say the Opposition finance spokesman's assessment is nonsense.Brendan Flynn, who analyses sovereign risk for Standard and Poor's, gives the Federal Government the highest triple-A credit rating.......
"With the triple-A rating, that's indicative of the extremely strong ability to meet financial obligations and therefore in our opinion, very little chance of defaulting on debt," Mr Flynn said.
"We rate all of the Australian states triple A or double A-plus, and the double A-plus is our second-highest rating - our opinion of a very strong ability to meet debt obligation."

A number of voters are not amused with this from rod3000 out in the Twitterverse; "Sir Barney Bjelke-Petersen" I like it Emmo :-) #qt and this from no_filter_Yamba; Why is it that Queensland seems to throw up politicians with serious neurological deficits? Barnaby Joyce needs to be retired pronto!

UPDATE:

Another Hockey moment to make Abbott cringe; Coalition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey called for an end to the stimulus, saying the big issue was no longer unemployment but interest rates. ''It's time for the government to explain how spending money on school halls in 2012 is going to create jobs and help address the economic downturn in 2008,'' he said.
In the same The Age article Deutsche Bank answered his question; Since mid last year almost 8000 primary schools have been building halls and computer labs and libraries with $14 billion [of stimulus funding] … It looks as if in January, with school about to return, the tradies put on more blokes. ''It has to be the stimulus. Private non-residential construction is flat, private industry isn't investing outside the mining sector.''

Peter Martin laid it out in pictures for the economic theory-challenged Shadow Treasurer: