Former treasurer Wayne Swan has defended his economic legacy and has attacked the Abbott government for blaming the unpopularity of its budget measures on a poor sales pitch.
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Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, Mr Swan also said it would not be long before “necessity” forced a future government to return to carbon pricing and a tax on natural resources.
Mr Swan was speaking after launching his book, The Good Fight, in Canberra on Monday, which includes details on the fractures in the previous government under Kevin Rudd, who is described in the book as “unstable” and “vindictive and juvenile”.
Mr Swan said he was proud of the former government's achievements in a minority parliament and during the global financial crisis, describing the Rudd-Gillard government's legacy as “a good story of successful economic policy and enduring social reform across many policy fronts”.
As the Abbott government is forced to consider compromises to gain crossbench support for many of its budget measures, Mr Swan said the government's faltering political position was not the result of a botched budget sales job but the budget's substance.
"You can't go around and tell the Australian community that there's a need for really hard structural reforms for the good of the country in the long-term and then abolish the biggest structural reform that's hard-put in place for our long-term prosperity, namely carbon pricing.
"You can't say that we need entitlement reform and go out and attack the incomes of some of the lowest income and most vulnerable in the community while you're proposing a $20 billion paid parental leave scheme."
Mr Swan said the Labor Party lost the debate over its introduction of carbon pricing early on by allowing it to be referred to as a carbon tax, a slip that was jumped on by those opposed to the policy.
“Around this time, vested interests assisted by a much more opinionated media hoed into the government [in a way] that has rarely been seen in the history of Australian politics", he said.
He said the goal of the vested interests "is to seek radical change to the distribution of wealth through the accumulation of even more political power in their hands".
Mr Swan said Australia was witnessing an “Americanisation” of those on the right of the political spectrum.
“As the budget in its aftermath has demonstrated, everything that the Abbott government now does is a search for a political strategy to sell that divisive unfair, un-Australian agenda to a disbelieving public at large.”
