READER COMMENT: CLAIRE Jolliffe (Daily, December 15) has reiterated the shocking, present state of the economy is Federal Labor's legacy, left for a captive audience to endure for generations to come.

Their hands aren't squeaky clean and they must accept responsibility.

While rubbishing Mr Hockey's inability to wave a magic wand is Labor's sport, Mr Shorten has no solution and shows no culpability for the fiscal paralysis his party inflicted upon the public.

It seems to be selective memory for many who now are shifting their loyalties back to Labor, mocking the Coalition which has failed to pass the majority of budget measures to remedy many of the shortfalls, as painful as they may be.

Mr Hockey seems to be in the firing line and the object of many a Labor joke, while it diverts the root of the problem away from focusing on Labor's ineptitude.

Budgets need a heavy-handed approach, when we are paying interest upon interest for debts and borrowings to pay for Labor's reckless spending sprees, the overseas joy-rides of Labor ministers and the past fiasco of Labor's changing horses in mid-stream.

To mock and frustrate any attempt to remedy the bind Australia is now suffering - through economic setbacks created by the disastrous decisions of the Labor years - is unconscionable.

United we stand, divided we fall.

E ROWE

Marcoola