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

My question is to the Treasurer. Now that the Treasurer has conceded that the only phone conversation he had with a car dealer was with John Grant, now that the Treasurer has conceded that the only home fax he received on car dealers was in relation to John Grant, will the Treasurer advise the House how many car dealers had their mobile phone numbers handed over to the chief executive of Ford Credit at a meeting in which Ford Credit was seeking more than half a billion dollars of support from this government?

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

To begin with, I covered these details before. I quoted the head of Ford Credit about a meeting he held with the Treasury where he said in the testimony last Friday that three or four companies to his knowledge were put in contact with the finance companies. The means by which these occurred—whether it was phone numbers, emails—I do not know, because I was not there. But I do know from talking to others that there were a large number of contacts facilitated between the Treasury and a significant number of dealers. Whether that was done by mobile phone numbers, whether it was done by email, I do not know. The reason I do not know is very simple, and it goes to the core of the exaggeration and the misrepresentation of those opposite. The exaggeration and misrepresentation of those opposite goes to this fact: it was the Treasury that was dealing with the finance companies and it was the Treasury that was dealing with the car dealers. They were handling those relationships. There was not a role that was played in there by the government.

That has been outlined at length by me—and indeed it was also outlined to some extent last Friday. Of course it can be outlined at length by organisations that were involved in those discussions and most particularly the Motor Trades Association of Australia, which was very much at the centre of putting its dealers in contact with the Treasury. So to suggest that I would have any knowledge of that at all is just indicative of how desperate those opposite have become. It is utterly desperate to say that some contact with a dealer somehow indicates some special benefit when all of the evidence indicates there was no special outcome and when these matters were dealt with entirely appropriately in the same way as other dealers were dealt with in the Treasury. That is what all the evidence indicates.

But they have not let go of this, because they have to continue to exaggerate; they have to continue to misrepresent. Why do they have to do that? To continue the smear based in the very first instance on a false email to make the most damning allegation that can be made against a political leader in any country in the world: that somehow he and his Treasurer are corrupt. That is what this desperate man who sits opposite did. He went out and did that, and it all turned to smoke yesterday. So what we are seeing in the House today is some attempt to misrepresent, some attempt to exaggerate, some attempt to try and retrieve some lost political ground.

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

Mr Speaker, on the relevant standing order it is pretty obvious that he is now running off on their usual tangent and he should be called back to the question.

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

Order! The member for Warringah shall resume his seat. The Treasurer will relate his material to the question.

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

The question related to the grubby opportunism of those opposite. That is what it related to. We have an opposition leader who is in so much trouble and is so desperate he went out today and claimed I was responsible for the creation of a fake email. How desperate can you get? He has no integrity, he has absolutely no credibility and those opposite should really bury this grubby opportunist and get rid of him as soon as possible.