Labor Party headkicker Wayne Swan departs with a final flurry

Wayne Swan was ever a warrior. He kicked heads, got kicked in the head, would swing and hit, swing and miss.

Wayne Swan and wife Kim at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday after the former Labor treasurer delivered his valedictory speech. Picture: Kym Smith

Wayne Swan was ever a warrior in his lifetime of politics. He kicked heads, got kicked in the head, would swing and hit, sometimes swing and miss but, typically, the Labor man with links back to the Whitlam government went out swinging yesterday.

In his final speech, the former Labor deputy prime minister and treasurer, who will retire as the MP for the Brisbane seat of Lilley at the May election after being elected 26 years ago, couldn’t pass up a free kick in parliament.

Although some of “Swanny’s” targets during a 40-year political career were on his own side, the recently elected president of the ALP didn’t waste his time on friendly fire or old feuds.

Instead, the lifetime Labor official, analyst and MP used his ­heckle-free space to condemn the Coalition for reviving “the politics of fear” to drown out other policies and reverting to the “American race-based dog-whistle politics” of the 1980s over border protection.

“When I first drafted this speech, I wanted to reach out across the chamber. To ask people, maybe just momentarily, to remove their party blinkers, try to understand each other, and maybe acknowledge the noble intentions behind the policies we’ve pursued, even the policies they most dis­agreed with,” he said last night.

“But the divisive tone that’s pervaded this place in the past week has made me realise that reaching out to some of those opposite is going to be harder than I hoped. Maybe a write-off,” he said.

 

Harking to the “Tampa trap in parliament in 2001”, when he was at home recovering from prostate cancer surgery, Swan declared: “Before then, covert appeals to ­racism and xenophobia were regarded as unworthy of our country’s elected representatives.

“Sure enough, 18 years later, it is being used again. Read Hansard and the ministerial transcripts of the past few days,” he said.

It was vintage Swan, unapologetic, vitriolic, heartfelt, anti-­Liberal and with a kick to a head to be taken at every opportunity no matter how warm and fuzzy valedictory speeches usually are.

It was also a demonstration of Swan’s unwavering loyalty to Labor and its values, which he shared with Labor “legends” such as Bill Hayden, Wayne Goss, Mick Young and Kim Beazley as well as Julia Gillard — “no tougher warrior for Labor”.

Swan, after being in policy and leadership fights over the decades with Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd, Simon Crean and Mark Latham, didn’t go so far as to attack any old ALP foes.

He simply didn’t mention Rudd, with whom he had feuded and fought for years before their blighted partnership in the 2007 Rudd government ended again in bitter acrimony when Swan backed Gillard to depose Rudd as prime minister.

Rudd has pilloried Swan’s performance as a colleague and treasurer over the years, accusing him of misleading him on the infamous mining tax and over leadership.

Swan yesterday proudly pointed to his ranking as the third-­longest-serving Labor treasurer, after Ben Chifley and Keating, and fiercely defended his handling of the GFC in 2008-09 on economic and social grounds.

Mr Swan is congratulated by Jenny Macklin. Picture: AAP

“The history books will record it as a moment of profound significance, second only perhaps to the Great Depression of 1929 onwards. And yet Australia avoided a recession — almost alone of the world’s major developed economies to do so,” he said.

“We knew from the failures of the 1930s and 90s what recessions do. They destroy lives. They cost people their homes and their savings and turn communities into ghost towns. They lead some into misery and even suicide. It takes a decade or more to fully recover.

“We did all this knowing full well our opponents would hound us with slogans about ‘debt and deficit’. In departing this place, I have a perspective I didn’t in the heat of battle and can honestly say I’m happy to wear that criticism as the price of saving Australia from much worse.”

Swan had special praise for his former adviser and the man who will be finance minister if Labor wins the election: Jim Chalmers.

After an emotional hug for Swan, Chalmers told The Australian: “History will judge Wayne’s performance during the GFC very kindly. No treasurer for eight decades has confronted more difficult peacetime circumstances and he met them with a combination of hard work, good values and good judgment.”