Wayne Swan - The Good Fight: Six years, two prime ministers and staring down the Great Recession

First published in Australia in 2014

Copyright Wayne Swan 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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eISBN 9781 74343 704 9

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To Kim, Erinn, Libbi and Matt, whose love and patience made it all possible. And to all Australian Labor Party members, the length and breadth of our great country, who never stop working to make Australia a more prosperous and fairer nation.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Under Opposition fire, even as the economy recovers

The leadership change

The curtain falls

The good fight

As a long-haired and barefoot kid in the late 1970s, there was only one thing that could have lured me from an idyllic life of footy and surfing on the Sunshine Coast and that was the promise of a university education. Then, having reached the University of Queensland, there was only one thing that could hold my attention amid the din of that eras music and endless parties, and that was the Australian Labor Party. I joined in 1974, under Gough Whitlam, while working part-time as a manure shoveller at the Brisbane showgrounds and then as a sewage worker for the council.

I cant remember everything that was going through my head while performing those particular jobs, but I guarantee you it wasnt a dream of higher office, unless that higher office was shovelling something more fragrant. Ive often thought what that young bloke would have made of the idea of serving his country as its Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister. I think he would have thought Australia a pretty amazing country.

This book is about that extraordinary privilege and those extraordinary times. It is the story of the six years of Labor government led by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, told from my perspective as Treasurer for sixty-seven of those sixty-nine months, the third-longest stint in that portfolio from my party in its 120 year history, behind Ben Chifley and Paul Keating. My sense of privilege is all the greater because my service took place amid the most challenging economic times since Red Ted Theodoreanother Queenslanderserved as James Scullins Treasurer during the Great Depression eight decades earlier. Ive tried to convey a sense of the drama and decision-points of the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath, and the stepssometimes tentative, sometimes bold and, yes, occasionally misplacedwe took along Australias long and fruitful path of painful economic reform.

All of that said, Im immensely proud of what I achieved in my time in high office. With rare exception, I am proud of the decisions I took, or helped take, to avoid the sort of carnage wrought by the last Australian recession almost a quarter century ago. I am proud of the decisions I took, or helped take, that ensured Australias remarkable run of uninterrupted prosperity endured despite the battering from the global economys implosion during my tenure. Ive been at this caper long enough to accept that not every Australian agreed with all my decisions, enjoyed their consequences, or even liked the way I explained them. But Australians got total commitment from me. I worked long and hard, I always weighed up the evidence presented to me, and I stayed in touch as much as possible. Most of all, I always tried to put the welfare of the Australian people before political considerations and calculations. I rest easy at night because I know I gave it my all. In the end Im confident that Australians broadly understand, and in time will come to understand even more, the remarkable gravity-defying feats we achieved together during the global recession and its aftermath.

Out of necessity, this book has concentrated on our macroeconomic policy. Space has precluded a detailed discussion of the National Broadband Network, welfare reform, higher education reform, our infrastructure agenda, the challenges posed by gambling reform, the influx of asylum seekers on our watch, and the significant policy changes we put in place to deal with the inter-generational issues as articulated by Everald Comptons Advisory Panel on Positive Ageing.

It wouldnt be credible for me to write a book that skates over the personal power-plays that rocked and wrecked our government. Like so many relationships at work or even at home, ours were turbulentand sometimes extremely so. From all sides that turbulence is on the public record, including from me. Where necessary, I have attempted to add to the public understanding of the leadership ructions of 201013 while trying as much as humanly possible not to let admittedly spectacular in-fighting overshadow our economic success. In other words, this account deals with how personal tussles diminished our authority but did not derail our efforts to slay a global financial crisis and set Australias sails for the years ahead. Ours was a very successful government, despite it all, and I hope this book helps the reader understand why and how this was the case.

I confess to some trepidation committing this story to paper and subjecting it to the judgment of the broader Australian community. The six-year period described in the pages that follow was an exhausting marathon from which Im still recovering! In one sense Im happy to let the facts of our government and our countrys achievements speak for themselves; Im deeply proud of what we achieved on the stickiest wicket in eighty years. Now I see the revisionists hard at work, chipping away at the legacy of Australias economic performance for cheap partisan gain. Aside from not being prepared to let ideologues rewrite history, as a patriot I cant resist the urge to tell a proud story of Australia, its economy, and its government from a Treasurers unique perch and perspective.

I want to assure you, though, that this is not a 100,000 word press release that covers familiar ground without self-reflection or self-criticism. The way I see it, a book like this is only of value if it passes the honesty test. That means candidly assessing the big successesany credible economist will attest that there were many of them. But it also means some honest acknowledgments of where we and I could have done things better. I hope readers will get a sense of my satisfaction in what our country, the actors in its economy, and your government achieved, mixed with some frank recognition of where we could have followed a different course.

PART I
THE ECONOMY IN CRISIS: AUSTRALIAN TREASURER 200709

NO ORDINARY PHONE CALL

10 January 2008

I took the call at 6.30 am in my car on the main street of Cotton Tree at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast. This was no ordinary summer break; and it turned out to be no ordinary call.

The coast in January has long been a place of personal refuge for me; the glorious surf there makes me feel a million miles away from the Canberra cauldron. This is where my deepest thinking occurs, where my body and mind are the healthiest. In short, despite not having lived there for forty years, it remains home in the most spiritual sense of the word.