Swan steeped in tradition of a fair go

WAYNE Swan's public face tends to be etched in shades of metallic grey: he is presented as a machine man of Labor politics, steady and steely

WAYNE Swan's face tends to be etched in shades of metallic grey: he is presented as a machine man of Labor politics, steady and steely.

Yet the monochromatic view of Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer and fellow product of Kevin Rudd's alma mater, Nambour High, is just as mistaken as the notion that his former boss was driven by anger.

Through his oversized spectacles, Swan sees the world and Australia's place in it from a much more traditional Labor platform than was the case with Rudd, who was two years behind him at school, but probably light years distant in terms of political nous.

Swan is Labor through and through. When he talks about the fair go, he means it, in a way that comes across far more authentically than Rudd did with his over-worked use of the term working families.

If you take him at his word -- written and verbal -- Swan believes in something that is quite out of fashion. It is the old-style notion that the job of government is to redistribute the wealth of the nation, from the well-off to those more in need, rather than grow the pie for the benefit of all.

Like Tony Abbott, Swan is a man of letters. The Opposition Leader's defining work was his 2009 book, Battlelines, outlining his vision for Australia and the Liberal Party post-John Howard.

Swan's opus is Postcode, published in 2005. Over 248 pages, he detailed thinking very much in keeping with his embrace of the "elegant" resource super-profits tax proposed by Treasury head Ken Henry, and junked so unceremoniously yesterday by Julia Gillard.

"Steadily, our country is becoming less equal, a place where the wealthy get wealthier and the poor are blamed and left a long way behind," Swan wrote in Postcode. "Anyone who cares about this country will find this trend deeply disappointing. This is not the Australia in which . . . I grew up. The ethos of a fair go -- for so long our nation's guiding philosophy -- is being turned into a museum relic.

"We are trading our unique way -- a fair day's pay for a fair day's work; helping a mate with a hand up -- for a new and much harsher dog-eat-dog society."

Swan came to the Treasurer's job with more social awareness than any of his predecessors, including Peter Costello and Paul Keating. His thinking was informed by his role as a university academic and six years in the role of family and community services spokesman for the then Labor opposition, in which he drafted the party's family tax package.

When the dust settled from John Howard's 2004 election drubbing of the ALP, under Mark Latham's short-lived leadership, Swan was elevated to the Treasury portfolio, reportedly at the expense of Gillard, Latham's pick for the job.

Swan retained it when Kim Beazley regained the leadership and then lost it to Rudd. When Gillard wielded the knife 10 days ago and cut Rudd down, Swan was with her, turning on a man who is godfather to one his children.

Politics is a brutal business and Swan, who celebrated his 56th birthday on Thursday, has overcome his share of hurdles to rise to the second-most powerful political post in the land.

Like Rudd, he was one of the casualties of the 1996 voter backlash that destroyed Keating's Labor government and brought Howard to power, losing his Brisbane seat of Lilley after only one term. He regained it two years later only to be confronted by a much more personal nemesis: prostate cancer. The stern face Swan presents is belied by a warm and engaging private persona. What you see of Swan is not necessarily what you get.