Hockey and Cormann enjoy cigars ahead of Budget

As the public braces for what is widely anticipated to be a horror Budget Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Matthias Cormann have been filmed smoking cigars on a cold Canberra day.

The footage of the architects of a Budget expected to increase taxes and strip welfare benefits comes at a bad time for the Coalition, which has already taken a hit in the polls.

And the ministers have come in for a predictable shellacking on social media given the contrast between the austere Budget and the men's pursuit of a habit widely associated with the elite.

Social commentator Jane Caro tweeted "There's nothing like the satisfying flavour of other people's hopes & dreams going up in smoke."

"Take the shirt off a worker's back, roll it around some mulled up pension cheques, light up and WHEEEEE!" Fairfax journalist Scott Ellis wrote online.

One widely circulated image shows the men puffing away with the caption "The age of entitlement is over… as soon as we finish these cigars".

The Budget will be delivered next Tuesday.

Source: Nine News

Author: Martin Zavan, Approving editor: Nick Pearson