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

I have always sought as a member of parliament and as a minister to deal as directly as I possibly can with people who have problems, and in this case there were lots of car dealers with some very big financial headaches and the employment of thousands of Australians was on the line. So, many, many people were calling my ministerial office, many people were calling the Treasury directly and many people were going through their industry organisation, and all of these things were being handled in the Treasury. As regards those that contacted my office, they were all forwarded on to the Treasury to be dealt with as quickly and as effectively as was possible. Certainly, many were. It is also the case that some dealerships may not have fitted the criteria for assistance that could have been provided either through OzCar or by existing finance companies. I am more than happy to follow up the details that the member for Grey has asked about, but the one thing that I can say is that the government and I, through all of these times, were motivated by one central factor, and that was to support the industry at a time of global financial crisis that was threatening jobs and threatening the supply chain right through to the auto manufacturers.

This was a very serious situation. Many people thought that they were indeed probably going to lose their finance by March. That is what it was like in February and, as I indicated to the House the other day, the Prime Minister and other ministers and I spent a lot of time on this issue through that period—day after day working with the Treasury; day after day making sure that we could get OzCar up and running, knowing through all of the period while OzCar was not up and running the only option available to the Treasury, which was in receipt of the information about those financiers who were staying in the market and those dealers who might be without finance, was to work with them all. There were updates coming through to me through that period. Some did go to my home fax. Many went to my email tray in the office. It just depended on where I was. But, in relation to the ones that went to my home fax from Mr Grech, they simply went there because he hit ‘reply all’ to a communication from my office. That is why they ended up there. I never asked for them to be sent there—in the first instance—by Mr Grech because my office was using my home fax to put a lot of material through. I do not apologise for one minute for having sensitive material sent to my home fax, because during this period we were working right around the clock, not only on this issue but on many other issues. I do recall that, as we were doing this, we were opposed every inch of the way by those opposite. So not every car dealer sought a conversation, but I certainly hope that every car dealer that went through my office got the treatment they should have received through the Treasury.

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