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Treasurer defends Abbott misogynist label

Updated October 12, 2012 16:43:00

Wayne Swan stands by the use of the term misogynist in relation to Tony Abbott and explains why he didn't walk out of a union function when a comedian made a crude joke about the Opposition Leader's chief of staff.

Source: Lateline | Duration: 20min 58sec

Topics: government-and-politics, business-economics-and-finance, canberra-2600


TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Our top story is the rise in jobless numbers and the latest round in the misogyny wars which saw Tony Abbott and his chief-of-staff as the butt of a crude joke at a union dinner inside Parliament House.

One of those present at that dinner was the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Wayne Swan.

Earlier today I caught up with Mr Swan before he headed off to meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Tokyo.

In an extensive interview he spoke about the Slipper scandal and the sexism debate, including his own role at that union dinner and today's unemployment figures and the big question mark over how the Government plans to fund its major reform plans. He was in our Parliament House studio.

Wayne Swan, thanks for being there.

WAYNE SWAN, TREASURER: It's good to be with you, Tony.

TONY JONES: Now I'll come to jobs and the economy in detail shortly. First to the issues around the Slipper affair that have dominated both Parliament and the headlines. Did the Government pay $50,000 in cash in a settlement to James Ashby to suppress the release of the latest batch of offensive Peter Slipper text messages?

WAYNE SWAN: No, of course we didn't, Tony, and that point was made in the Parliament today by the Attorney-General.

TONY JONES: Well, not quite. The Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, did talk about this. As you say, she said, "Clearly if that was the intention, it did not work."

WAYNE SWAN: Well it wasn't the intention. I listened to her answer. It wasn't the intention. These matters were handled in the normal way by the Attorney-General. She clearly answered that question in the Parliament today.

TONY JONES: So why wasn't this matter open for debate in the Parliament? The Speaker obviously thought it should be, but tactically the Government refused that to happen.

WAYNE SWAN: Well because this is a case that is currently before the Federal Court and the judge has reserved his decision. It was completely inappropriate for the Parliament to be debating the motion today which went to an abuse-of- process application in the Federal Court, and in doing that, that would have been a further abuse of process.

TONY JONES: Well, not according to the Speaker who you've just installed. She thought the debate could be handled.

WAYNE SWAN: Well, she issued a warning at the beginning of what would have been the debate, had it proceeded, and she made it very clear that people had to be very, very careful what they said.

TONY JONES: So why didn't you allow the debate to go on?

WAYNE SWAN: Because we believed it was an abuse of process.

TONY JONES: Alright. So the Speaker was wrong on this, you're saying, in her first day - second day?

WAYNE SWAN: No. Well she's entitled to make her rulings and I think she's a very good speaker, but she made it very clear that there was the potential to influence a court case and that she would be exercising very strict judgment on what was said. The Government's view was that this was an abuse of process which is about an abuse of process case currently before the Federal Court where the judge has reserved his decision.









TONY JONES: Well he's had to step down as speaker. Now he's had to resign as speaker. He's had to face the possibility of being the first speaker in history to be removed from power and the two independents would've made that happen.

WAYNE SWAN: Well, Tony, there's still court cases ongoing here, still judgments to be delivered. I believe what we saw was an abuse of process by the Liberal Party in the Parliament, an attempt yet again to blow the Parliament up and try and make it unworkable and they did not succeed in that endeavour.


WAYNE SWAN: Oh, Tony, come off. The fact is that Peter Slipper was endorsed by the Liberal Party for the last election. He had the personal support - he had the personal support of the Leader of the Opposition. He had that in 2010 and he had it in 2007. He had the strong support of a very significant portion of the Liberal Party partyroom. Let's be very, very clear about that.


WAYNE SWAN: No, but what I am responding to, Tony, is somehow the suggestion that the Government should have been aware of a whole lot of text messages that were sent by Mr Slipper before he became Speaker in the Parliament. That's been the suggestion in the public debate this week.







We've also had his consistent aggression against our Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, which has been very well documented on the public record.

But what the Prime Minister did was go through a range of statements that Mr Abbott has made through his political career and then she went through some of the actions in the current parliament of the Leader of the Opposition and what they add up to is not just a persistent, a persistent approach to women which demeans women, but also a persistent approach which I think drags down our political system.





TONY JONES: His wife came out and talked about him only a week ago. He has a number of daughters. He has close relations with women. Is it really supportable? I mean, it's probably the worst thing you could say about a man, that he is a misogynist, and still not be sued for it, let's put it that way.

WAYNE SWAN: Well Tony, he can't airbrush the record that the Prime Minister ran through in her speech from the public gaze. That's what he's been trying to do over the past week: to airbrush that history that she ran through in her speech and pretend it didn't happen and to go out and have a few fuzzy opportunities with the women in his life. I respect his personal relationships with his family so I don't intend to reflect on those, but what the Prime Minister was reflecting on was his public approach to issues and his public approach to her personally and other women members of the Government.


WAYNE SWAN: Well I think if you were to believe that sort of approach, what you would say is that we're responsible for the aggressive negativity that we've seen from Tony Abbott every day in the life of this Parliament. The fact is he can't airbrush away his approach to politics, which has been incredibly aggressive, incredibly negative. I mean, talking down our economy every day, wrecking anything that he possibly can.

And that's what I would characterise the behaviour in the Parliament again today as: wrecking behaviour. Because essentially, he somehow has it in his mind he has a born-to-rule mentality and that he should have been Prime Minister for the last two years and because he wasn't he's set out to wreck this parliament and to wreck anyone who's got in his way.

TONY JONES: What was your response to the comedian last night at the CFMEU dinner who made a crude and offensive joke about Tony Abbott's female chief-of-staff which somehow reflects or echoes exactly the same thing that happened at that Alan Jones dinner?

WAYNE SWAN: It was completely out of order. It was a remark that shouldn't have been made. I conveyed that view to the organisers this morning. It was completely out of line and out of order.

TONY JONES: Some ministers in the Labor Government actually got up and walked out at that point.


TONY JONES: You did not. Why not?

WAYNE SWAN: Well, first of all I was the guest speaker. But those comments were objectionable. They should not have been made. It would have been better if I said that directly last night.

TONY JONES: Why didn't you? You've said that. I'd like to know why you didn't make the point last night, particularly when it must have been resonating throughout the whole room that this somehow smelt of the Alan Jones affair.

WAYNE SWAN: Well I didn't want to give it oxygen last night. I don't want to give it an airing. I think in retrospect it would have been better if I did, but I didn't want to give it a further airing, and as I was the guest speaker, I was actually concentrating on my remarks.

TONY JONES: Have you or has anyone else in the Government apologised directly to Peta Credlin?

WAYNE SWAN: Well we didn't make the remarks, but as I understand it, the company from which the comedian came has apologised today.

TONY JONES: But do you think that the people who were in that room, particularly those who stayed and didn't walk out, owe her an apology?

WAYNE SWAN: Well Tony, I wasn't aware of what remarks the comedian was going to make, so I think they've made it very clear today that the organisers of the function did not know either. It would have been better if I'd expressed my view last night. I agree with that. But the fact is I've made my views very clear, so have others, and that, I think, is the end of the matter.

TONY JONES: What went through your head when he said this?

WAYNE SWAN: Well I couldn't believe that he'd said it. I was actually quite shocked at what he'd said. I didn't want to give it a further airing in the open dinner. The fact is that it was objectionable and it shouldn't have happened.

TONY JONES: Do you think it'll hit you as hard as the Alan Jones affair hit Tony Abbott?

WAYNE SWAN: Oh, look, I'm not going to be a judge of these matters. The fact is it was - it shouldn't have happened. It was wrong that it did happen and in fact the personal responsible for it has apologised.

TONY JONES: Let's move on to jobs and the economy. The Government's blaming today's rise in the unemployment rate on two things: Campbell Newman and the rise in the number of people entering the jobs market. Isn't the main reason simply that the economy is slowing down?

WAYNE SWAN: Well I think the first thing is we have to have some perspective about our economic fundamentals. Yes, the unemployment rate did go up today, but also so did the participation rate and there was quite strong jobs growth, something like 30-odd thousand-plus new full-time jobs, 14,000 new jobs net. That's a pretty good figure.

It is true that global growth is weakening somewhat and we've seen that from the IMF just this week and we're not immune from that happening. But we shouldn't let that disguise the fact that when you look at the solid growth we have in our economy, when you have a look at our relatively low level of unemployment, when you have a look at the very strong investment pipeline and when you look at our contained inflation, we've still got pretty solid economic fundamentals in this country.

But we are not immune from what is going on, particularly in the region, and of course you have seen weaker commodity prices in recent times and that will have an impact on our economy, on our national income and of course on our budget.

TONY JONES: So is the economy actually slowing down because the Reserve Bank, many economists are widely now predicting, will - are expected to lower interest rates again in November because they fear the economy is slowing?

WAYNE SWAN: Well, there's a couple of points here, Tony. If you look to the IMF forecasts that were published this week, they upgraded growth for 2012 and downgraded growth a little for 2013. We think we're still growing around trend, and as I said before, we've still got relatively solid consumption, we've got a strong investment pipeline, we've got contained inflation and we've got lower interest rates.

They're the circumstances that many other countries that I'll be sitting with at IMF meetings for the next couple of days would actually kill to have. So, we have got to get that into perspective.

But as I said, there is some flow-through from a weakening in the global economy which is impacting on growth in our region. That is first and foremost reflected in lower commodity prices and probably will be reflected in slightly weaker growth here.

TONY JONES: The Mid-Year Economic Review is coming up, so the question is: will it answer all the unanswered questions about where the money's going to come from for Labor's big reforms?

WAYNE SWAN: Well first of all, what we will do is give an update on the economic forecasts and all of the attention there will focus I think on the return to surplus in 2012-'13. We're determined to continue our responsible budgeting policies and you'll see that implemented in MYEFO. We'll provide an update on what's occurred in the economy. But MYEFO will be a statement which basically is an update on where we were at the last budget. It's not going to be ...

TONY JONES: But will it have the answers to these questions, the unanswered questions about where the money's going to come from for these very big reforms that you've got in the pipeline? Because you may have an investment pipeline in one area of the economy; you've got a reform pipeline you're going to have to pay for as well.

WAYNE SWAN: Too right. And over our past five budgets over time we have made responsible savings to fund our Labor priorities. And when it comes to some of those big reform projects which are out there for public discussion, for example the NDIS and Gonski.

In the case of the NDIS we already included funding in our last budget to make sure the trial sites get up and running. When it comes to an issue like Gonski, that will be a matter that we will consider in the normal budget context as we go through negotiations with the states.

So what we will get here in MYEFO is a normal mid-year budget update. I've already said on the public record that we will have to make some savings because revenues are further affected particularly by lower commodity prices and slightly weaker growth.

So, we will provide an update, but some of the matters you're talking about will be matters for forward consideration in the context of a full budget statement next year.

TONY JONES: Sure. But everyone's trying to to figure out where the money's going to come from for these big reforms, ...


TONY JONES: ... and so I've got to ask you a few questions about them.

WAYNE SWAN: Absolutely.

TONY JONES: One is: would you even be prepared to consider an education levy which is similar to the Medicare levy to fund the Gonski education reforms?

WAYNE SWAN: Tony, what we will do is put in place responsible budgeting policy, we'll operate within our fiscal rules, which we've outlined. These will be matters we'll consider in the budget context and we will outline both the revenue and the expenditure as it affects these key areas of policy. It's not something I'm going to make on this program (inaudible).

TONY JONES: Sure, but I'm talking about a principle. I'm talking about a principle. We know the Medicare levy's in place to raise money specifically. Would you be considered to even consider an education levy to raise money for these reforms which everyone believes, on both sides of politics, are fundamental?

WAYNE SWAN: Tony, I didn't think what you'll find is that our emphasis will be to make room within our budget to fund our priorities as we go forward. We'll do it the way in which we have done it through our past five budgets, that is, we will find savings to fund our priorities. And that's what we'll do, but we'll do it in the budget context.

TONY JONES: So when you say savings, is that ruling out the possibility into the future of a levy because you're talking about savings? A levy raises money; it's a different thing.

WAYNE SWAN: Tony, I've made it very clear when I've had these questions that we will stand by our commitment to keep the tax-to-GDP ratio at below the level that we inherited when we came to government. That's our commitment.

But our aim and objective will be to fund these priorities in a responsible way, as we've done already. I mean, we've found a billion dollars in term of our last budget to invest in trial sites for the NDIS. As we go forward, as we conduct the negotiations with the states and also with the sectors affected, we will outline how we're going to pay for new initiatives and we'll do that in the budget context.

TONY JONES: You'd be aware the Fin Review published a table with projected spending on all these big reforms plus the carbon tax shortfall and unbudgeted Defence spending and $2 billion for the Nauru solution. It came up with a $120 billion ...

WAYNE SWAN: That's right.

TONY JONES: ... budget blowout between now and 2020. Can you really afford to pay for these things?

WAYNE SWAN: Tony, that is not a fact, that is an outrageous distortion by the Financial Review and they should be ashamed of printing the figure. Even one of their senior journalists has described it in those terms.

TONY JONES: Well do you agree that it will be a top priority to find the many billions of dollars for the main reforms between now and the next budget?

WAYNE SWAN: Well it's certainly a priority that we will fund in a responsible way initiatives for the future, as we have done over the past five years. I mean, we've made room in our budget for some very important Labor initiatives. Paid parental leave, for example - the biggest increase in the aged pension for generations. We made room in our budget to put in place those significant initiatives, and as we go forward, we'll do the same again.

TONY JONES: We know where the spending's going to be. Where are the cuts going to be? What areas are you looking at cutting?

WAYNE SWAN: Well these will be the issues that will be dealt with both in the MYEFO process and also in our next budget. But I don't outline our budget plans on Lateline, Tony.

TONY JONES: Well there's a huge debate, for example, as to whether you're going to find money out of the superannuation system, and so there was a period of reports, a series of reports saying, "It's on; it's off. They're going to take the money out of the superannuation scheme; they're not going to." What's true?

WAYNE SWAN: Well I don't respond to reports in the Financial Review or anywhere else when it comes to budget speculation one way or the other.

TONY JONES: But people want certainty about their superannuation schemes.


TONY JONES: Can you give it to them tonight? Will you leave super alone?

WAYNE SWAN: Tony, I'm not going to play the rule in, rule out game on your program tonight.

TONY JONES: No, that wasn't a rule in, rule out game. That was a simple question about superannuation, whether you - whether as a principle, as a principle you'll leave super alone.

WAYNE SWAN: I'm not playing the game, Tony. I'm not going to rule things in or rule things out. We'll bring down our ...

TONY JONES: With respect, I don't suppose that people who've got superannuation and are worried about the future of their savings would think of this as a game.

WAYNE SWAN: Well, with respect, Tony, many of those reports are inaccurate, but I can't get into the position of ruling in or ruling out every report that appears either in the Financial Review or anywhere else. I don't do it. I never have for any of my budgets or mid-year updates and I'm not doing it tonight.

TONY JONES: Wayne Swan, we'll leave you there. We thank you very much for taking the time to come and talk to us. Certainly some information in that interview and we'll look at the tea leaves for the rest of it. Thank you very much.

WAYNE SWAN: OK. Thank you, Tony.