Stilgherrian » wayne swan

Wayne Swan’s “Yes Minister” moment

Stilgherrian — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:30:54 +0000

After he’d given the Budget Speech to parliament last night, Treasurer Wayne Swan was interviewed by the ABC’s PM program — where he delivered what I think has to be the best line of the night.

Swan was explaining that unlike his Liberal predecessor Peter Costello’s Future Fund, which was never spent on anything, Labor’s future funds would be spent on “contemporary” infrastructure needs. Journalist Mark Colvin asked how they could still be called future funds.

MARK COLVIN: I mean, if they’re not for the future, what are they for? Why aren’t they just government spending?

WAYNE SWAN: No, no. You’re confusing the name Future Fund with a fund for the future.

Yes, I can see how he’d be confused…

[Update 10.30am: Here's the relevant piece of audio.]

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So where are the Federal Budget papers?

Stilgherrian — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:13:20 +0000

If you want the real information on Australia’s Federal Budget announced tonight, go to www.budget.gov.au. Start with the Budget Overview and then Budget Paper No. 1. If anything there triggers a need for further digging, Budget Paper No. 2 has the financial specifics. There’s bound to be further surprises buried down in the rest of the documents, but they’ll get you going.

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Covering the Federal Budget for Crikey

Stilgherrian — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:43:27 +0000

Joy (I think). I’m part of Crikey’s commentary team for Australia’s 2008 Federal Budget to be announced tonight at 7.30pm Sydney time. It’s the first budget for Chairman Rudd’s Labor government, and the first for treasurer Wayne Swan, so it’s bound to interesting.

My role — at least as I understand it, ‘cos I haven’t actually spoken with my editor yet — is to look at it from a geek perspective. That’ll include, I imagine, issues I’ve previously covered for Crikey: Internet censorship, the ABC’s move into Internet TV, social media, the national broadband network…

But what else should I look out for?

When I asked on the Link mailing list, here’s a partial list of the suggestions I got:

Functional separation of Telstra into wholesale / retail / pay TV entities.
The laptops for schools program — what hardware? networking? training? maintenance?
Copyrights & patents, including government-funded enforcement of music copyrights — something the music industry has been lobbying for.
Assistance for IT startups, both hardware and software.

I’m also wondering just how forward-looking the budget will be. The brain cells are already firing. What can you add to the list?

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Latham calls Swan “insipid”: a good tactic?

Stilgherrian — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:44:58 +0000

So former Labor leader Mark Latham reckons Treasurer Wayne Swan is insipid, insecure and a try-hard…

In a column in the Financial Review, Mr Latham says Mr Swan has had more than a decade to develop his speaking style, but he is still struggling.

He says his body language is cramped, his delivery too rapid — and all up, he tries too hard.

Claiming that Rudd won’t wait any longer for Swan to improve, Latham reckons Rudd’s likely to name Julia Gillard as Treasurer.

I was alerted to this story by Noel Kelly, who said “With friend[s] like Mark Latham… Should we make him the federal opposition leader?” But I actually think it’s a tactic which works in Chairman Rudd’s favour.

Latham floats the idea of tipping Swan to see how the numbers lie — both in the party room and in the commentariat. Rudd can then choose to agree with him and sack Swan, or just say that Latham’s a crank and support Swan, as the situation demands.