Some years ago, on a mission to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for a charity, Hockey was overcome by the occasion. Some 60 metres from the summit, Hockey knelt down and buried an ultrasound photograph of his then unborn son declaring, "You are starting life at the top of the mountain, my boy".

Many might say that with his welfare and higher education funding policies, Hockey is not giving the same opportunity to many teenagers who are contemplating either working or going to university.

While the expedition was well-publicised with David Koch, compere of Channel Seven's Sunrise show, tackling the climb, middle Australia was spared this mawkish sight.

Australians had already seen the jovial Hockey tackle the Kokoda Track with "Kochie" and Kevin Rudd in 2006. Now here was a remade version of Joe Versus the Volcano, scaling it to raise money for a charity to save the lives of children.

In King's book, Hockey comes over as a politically driven creature, the ambitious son of a hard-working migrant, an emotional man who genuinely loves mixing with people.

The timing of the release of the biography, though, was unfortunate, coming amidst the MH-17 disaster and a stalled budget judged too harsh by minority parties within the Senate. You'd think the publishers might have waited 'til spring.

Then there is the plain embarrassment of a failed budget. Hockey has been criss-crossing the country trying to win support for passing the budget through the Senate. He's doing this after strangely taking an ill-timed holiday. It's a task that brings home to him how difficult government can really be.

It's not the first time that Hockey has fumbled; while a junior minister in the Howard government, he confused listeners over how much retail prices would rise when the GST was introduced in July 2000.

Then there was the time when he gave permission for the Mint to release a new $5 billion with the Queen's head removed. Hockey received an irate, screaming phone call from John Howard one Sunday morning asking who was responsible for the idea. That experience would have ruined the breakfast.

In King's account of Hockey's life story, we get him in all his manifestations; from "Fat Joe" at school, "Sloppy Joe" at uni, "Slick Joe" at social networking, "Crazy Joe" at media stunts like dressing up in a tutu or wearing a Shrek outfit.

We recently even had "Smoking Joe" when he was infamously snapped puffing on a cigar just before handing down his first budget.

The one adage we have not yet heard is "Honest Joe". That, it seems, may never apply because Hockey has sure used up a lot of political capital.

It was Hockey, for instance, who, while in Opposition, would spread the idea that the economy was in crisis and shout out "What is going on in Canberra?" It was all about "Labor's deficit and debt disaster".

Now, less that a year in office, Hockey told an audience in New Zealand there was nothing wrong with the Australian economy and that there was no crisis. Yet we learn from King's book that he wanted to bring down a tougher budget to really call time on the age of entitlement. So, how is it really, Joe?

King suggests that since Hockey had 80 per cent of his stomach removed he is literally a new man, no more bumbling Joe. He undertook the surgery to avoid the fate of Kim Beazley, namely, that Australian voters do not like their leaders to be overweight. What about that name, though?

Hockey was named after Joe Benedict Chifley but the latter got by using Ben. Sure, Hockey's no regular Joe but, in the American context, at least, the name Joe is redolent of one who is intelligent, earnest but dull.

You might recall that one of the most successful features that appeared in the Reader's Digest was the series: "I am Joe's body, I am Joe's brain". They did 33 variants on Joe's anatomy, even "I am Joe's stomach". They could not do one, of course, on Joe's conscience. Imagine if they could!

If we looked into Joe Hockey's conscience, or any other Australian federal politician for that matter, what would one see? The mind boggles.

There's one thing, though, all that calumny and blame for Australia's being lumbered with a line of projected structural budget deficits stretching over the horizon would not just be left with Rudd, Gillard and Swan but also Howard and Costello who poured money into middle class welfare and granted five successive years of income tax cuts.

If Hockey would ever admit that fundamental truth he would truly be remade and a figure to be taken seriously.

Alex Millmow teaches economics at Federation University, Ballarat.