Wayne “World’s Greatest Treasurer” Swan was humble and unusually charitable on The 7PM Project last night when he quipped he’d be happy to lend his shiny new award to Peter Costello “for a little while”.

Which is more than you can say for Joe Hockey …

Check out the company Swan keeps among the winners, Joe retorted: “Slovakian ministers, a Serbian, a Nigerian and a Bulgarian. In 2001 there was a Pakistani finance minister. That is quite an extraordinary one, that one.”

As Bernard Keane writes today:

“What’s extraordinary about Shaukat Aziz — later prime minister — getting an award went unexplained, particularly as Aziz was lauded for a consolidation of Pakistan’s previously shambolic public finances, something the IMF singled him out for praise over. Perhaps, you know — Pakistan is inherently funny? As for ‘a Nigerian’, well, that was only Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who became managing director of the World Bank for four years between stints as Nigerian finance minister and foreign minister. Still, Nigerians, eh?”

Classy, Joe. Classy.

Every Thursday, Crikey editor Sophie Black and Crikey‘s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane will talk the week’s events in the national capital.

Visit the podcast page (or via our iTunes page) on our website at 4pm AEST to download or listen.