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

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to an email dated 28 April 2009 and distributed by his own office this week. This email, on a car dealer, was sent to the offices of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and to the respective departmental secretaries and it states:

By the way—and in the unlikely event that you do not know—most of this woman’s employees live and work in the electorate of—

And here the words ‘the electorate’ have been omitted and replaced with the term ‘Liberal electorate’. Did this dealer receive assistance in the same way that John Grant did? Why was political representation relevant? Was it part of the Treasurer’s selection criteria, given this dealer was not a mate of the Prime Minister?

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

Every time the shadow Treasurer gets up and asks questions like that in this House, he just reminds the Australian people that the coalition has got no plans for jobs and no plans for the economy—none whatsoever. The emails that he is quoting from are emails that were released and which prove a very simple point: that Mr Grant received support, just like many other car dealers received support.

But it is certainly the case that there are questions that do need to be asked and answered here. Those questions relate to the role of the Leader of the Opposition and the role of the shadow Treasurer in their relationship with Mr Grech and the pressure they may have put him under.