Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his statement in the House on 4 June, when he said that Mr John Grant ‘made representations to my office, and he was referred on to the SPV, just like everybody else’. Can the Treasurer confirm that at a meeting between Treasury officials and the chief executive of Ford Credit in Melbourne, on Monday, 23 February this year, at which Ford Credit was seeking access to more than half a billion dollars of taxpayers funds, Mr Grant’s case was raised and his mobile telephone number handed over by Treasury officials in the full knowledge of both the Treasurer and his office?

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

As I was saying in the debate this morning, the Treasury was putting car dealers in contact with financiers simply because—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

They were doing it all the time because OzCar had not been established and, as the correspondence makes it abundantly clear, the only course for those dealers who were having their finance withdrawn by GE Finance or GMAC was for them to be picked up by those that were in the market at the moment.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. I cannot hear the Treasurer because of interjections from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister should control himself and not make the kinds of childish statements across the—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Warringah will resume his seat. The Treasurer has the call. All members have an obligation to listen to him in silence.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson and the member for Solomon!

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

As the correspondence that was tabled—

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Wood interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Latrobe! The member for Solomon has had an hour out and he has not learnt a very good lesson, has he? But you should not copy his behaviour.

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

The government signalled its intention to discuss matters with Ford Credit back in last December. Those discussions proceeded through the early part of the year because a particular problem had emerged in terms of Ford Credit and it was ultimately resolved in a cabinet decision that was announced after the budget. Of course, there are something like 300 to 400 dealers, particularly in rural and regional Australia, involved with Ford Credit, and the government’s decision to involve them in the SPV has been very important in supporting that employment.

As the email indicated, those matters were raised at one of those meetings by the responsible Treasury official, but the meeting they were raised at was a meeting that had been organised well before Mr Grant had made his representations to the Treasury, and it was not abnormal for Treasury officials to be talking to those that were providing finance to the industry. This has been made abundantly clear again today by the Motor Trades Association of Australia. I will just run through what Mr Delaney has had to say about that:

The treatment that Mr Grant, a member of mine, got was no different from the treatment all of my other members got on my intervention on their behalf to Mr Grech. They were all treated in the same way, and for the same good reason: there was no other way to do these things. In fact, I think Mr Grant has been treated less well because he went to the Treasurer.

What was going on here was also, I think, quite well described this morning by Mr Delaney, because he talked about the fact that there was a prospect of $8 billion worth of car financing simply being withdrawn. That was under threat. So Treasury officials, I believe, were legitimately seeking to assist those dealers that may not have been refinanced by those financiers who were leaving the market, and they were putting them in contact with those that were in the market. And, of course, Ford Credit was one of those. All of that is entirely appropriate, but the decisions on that were taken by the Treasury officials.