Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

During his speech before, the shadow Treasurer made a great deal about the fact that Mr Grech was meeting with Ford Credit, who were talking to OzCar about future arrangements. He then sought to say that there was some special attention paid to Mr Grant in those discussions. Let me take you back to that time, and Mr Delaney did this very well on the radio this morning. There was a massive threat to car dealerships in this country because GE and GMAC were withdrawing and many dealers did not know whether they were going to have finance, and particularly thought that their finance might simply stop in March through a prompt and rapid withdrawal by those two companies. We had decided to set up OzCar, but it had not yet been fully established. And what Mr Grech was simply doing in the case of Mr Grant and others was working as a public servant to put those firms that were already out there with the capacity to fund dealers in contact with dealers who were going to lose their finance. That is what was going on. That email that was referred to before by the shadow Treasurer does at the very beginning refer to the fact that the meeting with Ford Credit had been put in place weeks before the Grant representation had come through. I cannot vouch for everything that Mr Grech was doing but I do know what he was doing in this instance. He was referring dealers who thought that they would not have finance to finance companies that might have provided it. It was standard operating procedure.

I would have thought that as a party that pretends that they have got an interest in small business they would have thought that was a very reasonable thing to do. At the end of the day Mr Grant did not secure finance from Ford Credit and when I told this House that I did not know what the outcome had been of any of those representations I meant it—I did not know. If I had known, where are the rest of the emails that were supposed to have come along to justify the outrageous slurs coming from those opposite? The answer is: there are none. The representation was made. It was put in the hands of Mr Grech and he went off and made representations because that was his job—to help car dealers, to set up OzCar, to talk to Ford Credit and to do all of those things that are so important to be done during such a difficult time, because we had to do something for those dealers.

As it turns out, many of the existing financiers, particularly Esanda and Capital, decided that they were going to expand their books and in the end they took on many of the dealers that were left behind by the finance companies that had withdrawn. That was a terrific thing. It has meant that the OzCar vehicle is smaller than it was otherwise going to be. But it did mean that we were left with a particular problem with Ford Credit, because their international arm was no longer going to support them. We on this side of the House took the responsible decision to involve them in the special purpose vehicle so that 240-odd dealerships, mostly located in regional and rural Australia, would not go to the wall. This lousy mob opposite is seeking to exploit that action and to somehow say that it was sleazy. Shame on you! What this government has been doing honestly and directly and openly is working to solve a problem to support employment amongst small business in the auto industry.

What Mr Delaney said this morning is so true. There was a prospect early this year, upon the withdrawal of those finance companies, that this could have ricocheted right down the supply chain and hit the auto manufacturers themselves. That is what we were looking at earlier this year. So I personally was highly attentive to the needs of the industry. I spent a long time with the Prime Minister in many cabinet meetings and in many working group meetings—in fact some of them went on every day for weeks and weeks and weeks—to see what we could do about supporting this industry. I did spend a lot of time getting regular updates and briefs from officials in the Treasury about the progress of what was going on because I was worried sick that some of these dealerships were going to hit the wall.

I know that those opposite do not understand the nature or the depth of the global recession. You can tell that in their opposition to the stimulus. They do not have a clue about the nature of the economic challenges that have been posed to this country in recent times. It is why they were so opposed to the bank guarantee and the term funding guarantee, which is the single most important decision this government has taken to keep confidence running in our economy. And what did they do to that? It was the same grubby campaign they are running right now. Everybody in this House will remember the grubby campaign on leaked emails run by the Leader of the Opposition against the bank guarantee. It was something that was profoundly destabilising in this country at a very difficult time. He has demonstrated how reckless he is, how irresponsible he is, and now he should resign. (Time expired)

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