Joe Hockey's tax announcement an impressive exercise Treasurer Joe Hockey. TREASURER Joe Hockey's move to clean up outstanding tax announcements is a major - and impressive - exercise in the good functional government that new Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he wants to deliver. First, as an example of the commitment by Abbott to govern, not to engage in the relentless kowtowing by the previous Rudd and Gillard governments to the demands of the 24/7 real-time media spin cycle. You know, make a grand announcement; then spend the next year, trying to deliver on it, walk back from it, let it quietly sink without trace. Hockey simply went about quietly addressing this issue of all the announcements on proposed tax changes that had been made, but never actually legislated. He was, in a word, governing. Then when all the important Ts and Is had been crossed and dotted, he made the announcement. No dramas. Just the department doing what's it's supposed to do; the minister (and cabinet) doing the same. Secondly, it's good government, at a more basic level. These are tax changes which, once announced, in many cases, forced people to make their tax decisions as if they had become law, and they hadn't. This remains an issue - most notably with the carbon tax. It is legitimate to announce a date when it stops, even if you don't get to pass the legislation until after that date. It's a more open question whether some of the specific changes were good or bad. But that's a different issue. In many cases, Hockey was simply implementing the new government's election promises - like abandoning the previous government's increase in the fringe benefits tax on company cars. The abandoning of the previous government's proposal to tax income in super funds above $100,000 is a tricky one. It is very unclear whether that is sustainable in a fiscal sense, but also in a policy sense. We really don't want that to become an on-again/off-again issue at every future election.