Ah John Howard, probably one of the best fiscal managers in Aussie political history, ....
At the expense of infrastructure and that other tedious, unimportant stuff that governments are supposed to do.
Sure he and Costello saved cash very well, but they did it in pre-GFC economic boom and at the expense of actually building the nation.
We've all forgotten it, but the country was feeling very stale and we were riding a bubble of supposed wealth built on debt. The value of Rudd's stimulus spending can be argued forever without conclusion, but it did transfer some national savings into reducing personal debt and providing a transition period for exposed businesses (particularly construction and retail), which was indisputably of some value to the country as a whole.
I do know that Howard and Costello would have done an infinitely better job of convincing the punters that they'd done the right thing... And this undoubtedly would have had its own value to the country, when the market is so easily spooked.
Old mate Abbott had a plan for the GFC that every economist ridiculed as ineffective and would have undoubtedly allowed us to slide into recession. Even a mild recession would have cost the country significantly more than the stimulus spending, BTW... Gittens (among others) have detailed how/why this is so.