At Wayne Swan’s new restaurant, he should eat his words HAVE you heard the latest rumour? Wayne Swan will quit politics before the next election to start a new restaurant on the Sunshine Coast. To be called the Deluded Goose, it will be a fierce competitor to the existing restaurant at Twin Waters called the Loose Goose. There is also talk that Martin Parkinson, whose term as Treasury secretary ends soon, will take a front-of-house position, handing out menus that will feature organic pork pies, to be called Pure Porkies, as the signature dish. The new restaurant, in which Parko is taking a financial stake, will of course be carbon-neutral, powered by all the used cooking oil discarded by the many fish and chip shops — the one in Maroochydore is a particular favourite of Swanny — located up and down the coast. The most comforting aspect of this new venture will be the scope for Wayne and Martin to reminisce about those heady days when Swanny was crowned the finance minister of the Year. When the last customer for the day is gone, they will be able to pat themselves on the back and sing in unison, to the tune of Waltzing Matilda: “We saved Australia from the GFC.” I’m not quite sure how the sales are going of Swanny’s apologia — aka his recent book The Good Fight with a subtitle as long as a carpet python. I notice that the book (I call it Good One) can already be bought for 25 per cent below the recommended retail price; even signed copies are selling for a discount. I just hope he didn’t put any money on his bet that his book would outsell Paul Kelly’s groundbreaking and insightful new book, Triumph and Demise. My guess is that Swanny is much more careful with his own money than he was with taxpayers’ funds. Last week, the former treasurer was out of the blocks, tweeting about the tragic demise of his mining tax, which had raised next to no revenue, and writing a defensive column on the ABC’s The Drum website. And the precis of his column, which was titled “Don’t be fooled: the GFC required a strong response”, is as follows: it was all Peter Costello’s fault and negative commentators like Henry Ergas and me just don’t get it. But the most extraordinary aspect of this self-serving rant was the release of a presumably confidential letter by Treasury secretary Parkinson to the then deputy prime minister and treasurer, Swan, dated September 26, 2011. Actually, I initially thought the letter was a hoax, but given that it was released by Swan himself, we can assume it’s fair dinkum. The ostensible purpose of the very long letter — nearly 1000 words all up — is to congratulate Swan “on behalf of all staff of the Treasury” on being selected as Euromoney finance minister of the year for 2011. Evidently, Parkinson regards Euromoney as an “objective analyst”, which would surprise most current and former Treasury officials, who regard this award as a complete joke. (One wag put it to me: it’s a magazine, for heaven’s sake.) Parko’s letter goes on and on about “the role of the government’s policies in contributing to the resilience of the Australian economy following the global financial crisis”. Reinforcing the point, he claims that “while not the only factor, the Australian policy response was an important contributor to the outperformance of the Australian economy during the downturn”. Evidently, without all that wasteful spending — think cheques for $900, pink batts, school halls — we would have had negative growth for three consecutive quarters, according to Treasury’s guesses. Would that have been negative 0.1 per cent each quarter or negative 2 per cent each quarter? Sadly, the letter doesn’t tell us. But here’s the bit I really love: “Another distinctive feature of the Australian policy response was the clear articulation of the exit strategy from these interventions at the time they were put in place, so as economic and financial conditions normalised, the policy intervention would be unwound.” What this exit strategy amounted to in practice is a bit unclear. Would it be the four budget surpluses that Swan announced in the 2012 budget that would never come to pass? Would it be the fact government payments went from $271 billion a year when Swan took over the Treasury reins to more than $400bn when he left? But just in case you are under the impression Parkinson’s support for Swan was confined to his adroit and masterful conduct of fiscal policy, think again. I quote from the letter: “While this award is well-deserved recognition for your past performance, I know that you are focused on addressing the opportunities and challenges facing the Australian economy now and in the future: the challenges of a patchwork economy; the opportunities of the Asian century; least-cost greenhouse gas mitigation through carbon pricing; and the broadbased reform agenda focused on improving our productivity performance.” Evidently, his colleagues and he looked forward to working with Swanny on these issues. Needless to say, the letter is doing the rounds among former Treasury officials. One former senior official has described it as “obsequious tosh” and another called it “grovelling”. Moreover, it is virtually impossible to imagine any former secretary to the Treasury writing such a fawning congratulatory note to his minister. So I say to the two men, good luck with the new restaurant venture. I just hope the Deluded Goose is more successful than your attempts to steer Australia through the North Atlantic financial crisis, leaving Australia with ongoing budget deficits, an unreformed economy, much higher government debt and a rate of unemployment that exceeds those in a large number of developed economies. theaustralian.au/opinion/columnists/at-wayne-swans-new-restaurant-he-should-eat-his-words/story-fnbkvnk7-1227051898292
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 23:39:25 +0000
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