Five Songs We'd Have Liked To See Joe Hockey Dance To

Going in to federal Treasurer Joe Hockey's announcement of the Budget last night, we always knew it was going to be a hard one to hear.

Regardless of your personal feelings on it, though – whether you were in the camps that were spared or sacrificed – it doesn't take an emotional genius to know that any budget will be a fairly sensitive and tense exercise; people's personal livelihoods, beliefs and ideals are held up for inspection and then either coddled or brutalised, all for the greater good of the country.

Which makes today's reports that Hockey was allegedly spotted getting his pre-Budget psych-up on to the tune of American Authors' Best Day Of My Life all the more perplexing.

However, the good Treasurer has vehemently rejected the claims, saying that if – if – he were dancing, it was only because he was seeing his son for the first time in three weeks, and his son's favourite song just happens to be Best Day Of My Life.

Seems a bit … “convenient” … to us, Joe, but perhaps not as "convenient" as if you had been gleefully listening and getting your groove on to one of these songs instead, just before bringing the pain to average Australia …

The Flying Lizards – Money (That's What I Want)

This track is utterly anthemic. It speaks to the core of what makes the ultra-rich tick, immediately instilling bubbling pride in any red-blooded, white-collared person with ears, and compelling them to reach for their empty wallets, open them nice and wide, and jam them expectantly under the noses of the homeless.

In the loosely adapted words of Gina (Renee Zellweger) from Empire Records – “Joe wants money. Lots of money. Your money.”

Midnight Oil – Read About It

This one would have had an added degree of irony, given Peter Garrett's political past. It also would have displayed a frightening amount of self-awareness on Hockey's part, had he been listening to it before delivering his budget speech, although he perhaps could have used its “the rich are getting richer” lyric – in fact, the anti-capitalist themes that underpin the entire song – to assuage any guilt he may have had about inflicting the budget repair levy on those poor battlers scraping by on $180,000 or more a year.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop

But shit, it's just the 99 percent – Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' 2012 tribute to frugality might well be the unofficial soundtrack to the next few years after Hockey walked up in the House like, “What up? I've got some big cuts.”

At any rate, it'll be likely that only a select few of us will just casually have more than $20 in our pockets at any given time for the foreseeable future, so we're actually a little surprised that it wasn't this song Hockey was reportedly caught busting a move to.

Dead Kennedys – Kill The Poor

We'd love to have included a film clip for this song, but the Dead Kennedys still have a link to their MySpace page on their website, if that gives you any indication of their official presence on the web.

And OK, fine, maybe this one would have been a little on the nose; a little “mean”. It's not like Hockey seemed to have kind of a hard-on for fucking the poor or anything, we guess. Sorry – language. Penetrating the poor.

Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball

…What? Too obvious?

It's too obvious, isn't it.