By Ross Gittins

Allen & Unwin, $32.99. Buy now on Booktopia

When Ross Gittins arrived in The Sydney Morning Herald newsroom in 1974, he was considered a bit of an oddity.

He kept reminding his fellow journalists that he was an accountant. He didn't frequent the pub. And he was just a wee bit too confident for a new boy. "Won't last," was the general consensus.

No one could have anticipated that Gittins, some four decades later, would be an icon of Australian journalism who can release a memoir simply titled Gittins.

"There are a lot of things I wouldn't mind being written on my tombstone," Gittins writes, "but I know what will be: he was the only economist we could understand."

That has been Gittins' gift to readers since 1979 – easy to understand columns on the Australian economy written by a self-acknowledged frustrated teacher.

This book goes behind the columns to inform Gittins aficionados how these missives are constructed – down to the correct spelling, the right terms, when to use commas and italics. All very useful for journalism students with a passion for economics but a little too detailed for most of us.

Where the book gets really interesting is when Gittins lets loose with his blunt views on the 13 Australian treasurers he has covered, the operation of the Reserve Bank, the Treasury department and even his fellow columnists.

Veteran journalist, editor and economic columnist Max Walsh comes in for a real thrashing. "I'm a natural optimist, Walsh a natural pessimist," Gittins writes. When they were both writing columns for The Herald they often reached different conclusions on the outlook for the economy.

Gittins puzzled over this and finally decided that Walsh was simply using a different formula: "I cared about my long-term record, Walsh didn't. His idea of a win was to write the column that had everyone talking about it at morning tea that day. By that measure, he was an inveterate winner. I call it the Doing-a-Max formula."

Walsh might get some consolation from Gittins' confession that he failed macroeconomics on his first try at university, and failed commerce stats twice.

Gittins is no easier on our Federal treasurers, with the exception of Paul Keating. Here, his view of Wayne Swan, federal treasurer during the Rudd and Gillard governments: "He was too weak to be treasurer. He wasn't brave enough on the reform front nor tough enough in controlling government spending and he couldn't sell ice creams on a hot day at the beach."

And Peter Costello: "The notion that he is up there with Keating as an economic reformer is partisan propaganda."

He adds: "The secret to political success is to make sufficient compromises to always be able to put together a big enough coalition of interest groups. Most pollies understand that instinctively. Costello never did. He thought he had all the power and you had none. When bank economists made comments about economic management he objected to, he wasn't above phoning their bosses, complaining bitterly and making vague threats."

John Howard "was someone who wouldn't have kissed his granny goodnight without the political implications of the act flashing across his mind as he leant across. He always reminded me of the joke that if you can fake sincerity you've got it made."

Keating, however, is worthy of praise: "Our greatest treasurer, with daylight second," Gittins writes. "To this day I'm unembarrassed that, when I sent him a copy of my first book, I inscribed it 'to God's gift to the economy'."

Gittins reveals a little of himself in this book. His background as the son of Salvation Army officers, for example, has done much to frame his views on economic inequality and the importance of helping the underprivileged.

His shifting views over the four decades of his career: "I've become increasingly skeptical about the push for endless economic growth, the unquestioning support for high levels of immigration, the narrow definition of what constitutes micro-economic reform and the dubious arguments used to urge more of it, as well as the inadequate attention paid to continuing environmental degradation."

And, for me at least, it explains why Gittins dressed in those white suits for what seemed like years. We can blame Paddy McGuinness, former Australian Financial Review editor and eccentric economic columnist.

"Paddy, who always dressed in black, taught me that an ambitious economics editor always uses his clothing to draw attention to himself," Gittins says. "Since Paddy was all black, I tried being all white like Tom Wolfe, but was too much of a grub. I settled for 'rumpled casual'."

This book is one man's journey through economics journalism in Australia. It will be of particular interest to journalism students who have a passion for economics. And a good read for those who have enjoyed his economic columns over the years.

Colleen Ryan is the author of Fairfax: The Rise and Fall (MUP).