Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

And yes, we just heard the opposition again doing what they did in question time by now traducing his reputation. It was not good enough to traduce the reputation of ministers of the Crown; now we traduce the reputation of a man who represents employers in this country, because he had the temerity to tell the truth. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should hang your head in shame, as should your colleagues, traducing the reputation of a man because he dared to tell the truth, because he dared to stand up and say that the government has done nothing wrong. That is what this opposition does; it is their modus operandi—when caught out, traduce; when caught out, smear; when caught out, exaggerate. The chief executive of the Motor Traders Association, an organisation which represents employers, came out and said that this case was handled no differently from any other. In fact Mr John Grant probably got a little worse treatment because he went directly to the Treasurer not to the Treasury. It was a pretty compelling statement.

Then overnight the Treasurer released a series of emails showing that a range of cases received close and personal attention from the Treasurer’s office. None of them were from Mr John Grant of John Grant Motors. I will share one example with the House, an email of 28 April, 7.01 pm. The opposition has made the claim that because emails are sent after hours somehow that shows that special attention is being given. Okay, fair enough. This is in relation to a female dealer. I do not know her name because it is blacked out, appropriately, in the email, but we can take it as read that it is a female, that it is not John Grant. The email says:

I took a call this morning from [name]. She told me that the Treasurer’s office suggested she speak to me …

So she was referred to the Treasury as Mr Grant was. It goes on to outline some details and then it says:

I and Credit Suisse spoke to the Australian head of [an unknown finance company] early this afternoon to determine what scope there was for that company to keep financing [name].

So there you have the Treasury official talking to the Australian head, the chief executive, of a finance company trying to get finance for this individual. It is exactly the same as occurred with Ford Credit and Mr John Grant. But this person, presumably, had never had the misfortune of meeting a member of the government or of knowing the Prime Minister, because, according to the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition, that would disqualify them from getting that assistance. It goes on to outline the support given by the Treasury and the Treasurer’s office to that individual. When you look through these emails it is quite clear on any objective reading that the Treasurer’s office was actively working and assisting a whole range of car dealers, and so they should, because that is the job of the Treasurer and the Treasurer’s office.

The opposition makes a case that Ken Henry, the Secretary of the Treasury, was personally copied in to the emails on Mr Grant. They said that that was inappropriate: how could the Secretary of the Treasury be singled out to be informed about one dealer? There is only one problem with that little equation: out of the 131 emails between Mr Grech and the Treasurer’s office, 82 were copied to the Secretary of the Treasury, dealing with a range of car dealers.

As I said yesterday in the House, the Treasurer of Australia is a very good man. He is also a very good Treasurer and a very competent man. When did the opposition first raise this issue? When it became apparent that Australia had returned positive growth in the last quarter. So they had their little tactics meeting and they said: ‘Well, we had better get off the economy. We cannot attack the Treasurer’s competence and we cannot attack the Prime Minister’s competence, because they are leading Australia through the global economic crisis. We are actually now the fastest-growing developed country in the world. We have the second-lowest unemployment of any developed country in the world. So we had better not make those cases anymore because they are in tatters. I know what we will do. We will traduce the reputation of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. We will raise questions about their integrity, because we can no longer raise questions about their competence.’

Oppositions are entitled to pursue whatever tactics they like. They are entitled to raise questions. They are entitled to raise issues. They are more than entitled, they are obliged to do that. But what they are not entitled or obliged to do is to call for the resignation of the leader of the nation based on a forgery. They are not entitled to traduce the reputations of good people whether they be government ministers or heads of employer organisations or public servants or others.

But we all know this opposition, who—so disappointed at having been thrown out of office in 2007—when under pressure, traduce the reputation of good people and public servants. They have done it to Ken Henry and Graeme Samuel; they have done it to many. Now they are doing it to the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and Mr Delaney. The opposition can make all sorts of allegations in any method they like, but the activities of the opposition over the last few days say a lot more about them and the Leader of the Opposition than they ever will about the government, the Treasurer or the Prime Minister.

See this speech in context