Wayne Swan

[Neferti]

Rare footage of Australian Fed Treasurer, Wayne Swan's childhood has recently surfaced...

http://i.imgur.com/XaiUx.gif

[Rorschach]

A week of spin, division and incompetence

The first parliamentary sitting week for 2013 again highlighted Labor’s incompetence, division and dishonesty.

As MPs returned to Canberra, ordinary Australians were again reminded of Labor’s division and addiction to spending, spin and broken promises.

In the space of just a week:

* Julia Gillard and Labor confirmed that the budget is in deficit, despite previously promising and guaranteeing a surplus on over 650 occasions
* Labor also refused to rule out further tax hikes on superannuation
* It was revealed at the ICAC inquiry in NSW that Ministers Conroy and Burke had accepted free hospitality from Eddie Obeid
* Senator Trish Crossin had demanded a board or ambassadorial appointment following her dumping by the Prime Minister
* Craig Thomson appeared before court in Melbourne to be formally charged with 154 fraud offences
* The Prime Minister accused some of her own MPs of undermining the Government
* Kevin Rudd’s backers in Caucus continued to agitate for change in the Labor leadership

And to cap the week off, Wayne Swan announced quietly this afternoon that the mining tax has only raised about 10% of what it was supposed to raise!

Go Labor... Go Wayne...

[mellie]

Rare footage of Australian Fed Treasurer, Wayne Swan's childhood has recently surfaced...

http://i.imgur.com/XaiUx.gif

I really like this gif






Seriously, you cant take her anywhere... but at least her nose broke her fall.

[Rorschach]

AiG report confirms carbon tax blow to manufacturing

29/01/13

Manufacturers have been slugged by even higher than predicted increases in energy costs, according to an Australian Industry Group (AiG) analysis of the first six months of the carbon tax.

The report found that manufacturing businesses estimated an average rise of 14.5 per cent in energy cost increases (defying Labor Government predictions of a 10 per cent increase), with many unable to pass on cost increases.

“The Coalition has consistently warned that trade-exposed Australian manufacturers would be unable to pass on the cost increases imposed by the carbon tax,” said Sophie Mirabella, Shadow Minister for Industry, today.

Innes Willox, Chief Executive of AiG, said:

More broadly, businesses face strong barriers to passing on costs arising from the carbon tax to their customers. The first survey in our multi-stage research program, which we conducted in June before the carbon tax took effect, suggested that just 42 per cent of businesses intended to pass on their increased costs. The barriers they face include; pricing power among their customers; local demand conditions; and competition from imports produced in countries that do not impose similar carbon costs.

“Food manufacturers have been particularly hard hit, reporting a 90 per cent increase in their input costs,” Mrs Mirabella said.

“Over 27,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector since the announcement of the carbon tax.

“Now we see clear evidence that the carbon tax is part of the government-imposed costs facing our manufacturers.

“The carbon tax is a reverse tariff on Australian industry and is resulting in a significant loss of competitiveness for those that are trade exposed.

“This is the worst possible time to impose a carbon tax on Australian industry.

“The Coalition has a clear plan to provide a stable Government and strong economy. We will repeal the carbon tax, cut red tape compliance costs by at least $1 billion, reduce government waste and provide businesses with the certainty they need to prosper,” Mrs Mirabella concluded.

So what did Wayne have to say?

"No it's not possible that we're bringing in the carbon tax, that is a hysterically inaccurate claim being made by the Coalition."


Run Wayne Run!

[Rorschach]

No excuse for overcooked political vows
* by: Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
* From: The Australian
* February 09, 2013 12:00AM

THE Gillard government's political-economic agenda has unravelled. The Treasurer has no clothes.

Hope for a 2012-13 budget surplus, promised for three years as part of good economic management to create jobs and restore confidence, is gone. The $2 billion funding - down from original estimates of $10.6bn - for "spreading the benefits of the boom" through the Schoolkids' Bonus, family payments, carbon tax compensation, company tax cuts and superannuation rises is also gone.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion ... 6573928367" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Rorschach]

No wonder Hockey keeps telling Swan he loves him...

Blunder after blunder sets Swan up for attack
February 15, 2013
Mark Kenny
Senior political correspondent

Julia Gillard's political troubles went from bad to worse on Thursday as her chief economic salesman first fluffed his lines on possible income tax rises and then quoted the wrong jobless number in Parliament.

For a government with a solid story to tell on the economy, Wayne Swan's refusal to rule out income tax rises in the budget (since ruled out), and his ''mistake'' in quoting the unemployment rate as 5.1 per cent instead of 5.4, sent government morale further south. Seems the Libs think Swanny is the weakest link...

Jobs after all are supposed to be the government's most central concern. As Labor points out, it is the Coalition which is planning income tax rises.

It concluded another horrible week for Labor.

In Parliament, Labor's despair is palpable. And their behaviour inexcusable...

After one barely convincing defence from Swan at the dispatch box, not a single ''hear-hear'' was uttered as government MPs stared at their iPads.

It is now less than six months from the formal beginning of the election campaign. The precise timing had suggested a hidden strategy for 2013 - a steady rise punctuated with smart initiatives and the deft use of the various advantages of office.

Yet that timetable is feeling much more like a closing window, or as one dejected supporter called it, ''a guillotine''.

The embattled Swan would have been relieved to feel wheels up as he jetted off to Moscow for a G20 finance ministers' meeting late on Thursday. At least in international circles, Australia's stellar economic record still cuts some ice.

That it doesn't do so at home is a blight on the government and an indictment of the Treasurer's sales skills.

The Minerals Resource Rent Tax is a case in point.

The Treasurer blamed market volatility in iron-ore prices, a high dollar and other conditions to explain its pathetic $126 million return over six months. Everyone else knows it was hobbled for political convenience.

The opposition is now gunning for the man it regards as Labor's weakest link.

The logic is that by damaging Swan, whom voters do not rate anyway, they can also scuttle Labor's diminishing hopes of leveraging the economy electorally.

Unlike Gillard, whose best performances have come when she is up against it, Swan wears his vulnerability.

With him, pressure shows - it brings mis-steps.

His obvious MRRT pain flows directly from his other self-inflicted wound - the promise come hell or high water to deliver a surplus. yet another ALP broken promise

It was he who made the surplus into the albatross it has now become. Come now Gillard did just as much if not more.

And it was he who insisted on it when it was obvious to all and sundry that it was either unachievable - or worse, ill-advised.

Swan may have been tagged internationally as the world's greatest treasurer, we all knew that was crap but right now Labor's hopes turn on whether he can lift his game at home and dramatically. wont be happening

[Rorschach]

Hmmmm... Wayne Swan



Looks a hell of a lot like Arsie.

[Rorschach]

Gee things are bad says the head of the Treasury... ya reckon?
I wonder whose doing that would be then?

Things not been this bad since global crisis, says Treasury head
February 15, 2013
Peter Martin
Economics correspondent

A profits squeeze of historic proportions lies behind the government's deteriorating budget position, according to the federal Treasury, which says things have not been as bad since the global financial crisis.

Appearing before the Senate's economics committee on Thursday, the Treasury head, Martin Parkinson, promised to reveal details of the final deficit or surplus for 2012-13 before the election even though he was not legally obliged to. that ought to make Labor happy.... NOT!

The election is due on September 14. The Treasury's pre-election financial statement is due on August 22, but the final budget outcome is not due until September 30.

Responding to questions from the Coalition senator Mathias Cormann, Dr Parkinson said although he would not have all the figures ready before the election, he should be able to produce a final figure for the underlying cash balance - the most watched measure of surplus or deficit - well ahead of the pre-election outlook.

If the government did not release it before the pre-election financial statement he would release the statement.

''Nobody will be under any illusions, or shouldn't be under any illusions, that they won't know the underlying cash balance number in time for the election,'' he said. ''It will be, or should be, publicly available. The bottom line will be known.''

Australia's budget position has deteriorated swiftly because commodity prices have crumpled while the dollar remains high.

''We would traditionally have expected the exchange rate to fall as well,'' he said. ''The fact is the exchange rate has stuck up. What that has meant is that for firms in sectors such as mining, where revenues are in US dollars and costs are in Australian dollars, their margins are squeezed. It's a profit squeeze that is flowing through into particular types of revenue.''

David Gruen, the Treasury's head of Australian macro-economics, said income growth was its weakest relative to economic growth since the global financial crisis. let's hear ya brag about that then wayne.

Nominal gross domestic product had grown far slower in the past year than real gross domestic product. Nominal GDP is the dollar value of what is produced and earned. It is the measure that drives tax revenue. Nominal GDP grew just 1.9 per cent in the year to December, far below real GDP growth of 3.1 per cent.

''It is extremely unusual for the dollar value of the economy to grow slower than real value,'' he said. ''Our quarterly national accounts data goes back to 1959. There are only two quarters in that time in which nominal GDP growth was that far below real GDP growth - both were in the global financial crisis.''

The only other times nominal GDP growth fell behind real GDP growth were during the economic slump of 1961 and the 1997 Asian economic crisis.

Real GDP was likely to remain depressed for the next two years.

Asked how long he thought it would take to achieve a surplus in the new environment, Dr Parkinson declined to answer, saying that the question invited him to express a personal view.

He would work with the Tax Office and ''hopefully with the industry'' to try and ''unpick'' why mining tax collections were so much lower than expected.

[Rorschach]

[Rorschach]

Wayne Swan may be Treasurer, but he's certainly no treasure

* by: JUDITH SLOAN, CONTRIBUTING ECONOMICS EDITOR
* From: The Australian
* February 16, 2013 12:00AM


WHEN you enter the Treasury building in Canberra - one of a number of examples of late brutalist architecture in the area - you immediately notice the long line of photographs of former treasurers, as well as the current one, hanging on the walls.

All men, there are some memorable ones and some not-so memorable ones. Does anyone remember Leslie Bury, for example? Evidently, one of his finest achievements as treasurer was his ability to sleep through meetings.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nationa ... 6579108413" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;