WAYNE SWAN MP
MEMBER FOR LILLEY
Response to Tony Makin’s Report
The leaking of a report by Professor Tony Makin prepared for the Treasury today shows just how desperate the Turnbull Government has become.
The report is a little more than a reheating of Professor Makin’s 2014 “analysis” which was thoroughly debunked by Treasury at the time and is still available on the Treasury website.
There was nothing misconceived about Labor’s stimulus package which saved 200,000 jobs and kept Australia out of recession.
Our package was lauded by the International Monetary Fund and Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz as one of the best in world.
Former Treasury Secretary and current Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet Martin Parkinson and former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry have both previously expressed their support for Labor’s stimulus package.
Current Treasury Secretary John Fraser has serious questions to answer about when and why Professor Makin was commissioned to undertake this report given his previously established ideological opposition to fiscal stimulus.
Since the Global Financial Crisis, the Liberal Party has embarked on an ideological crusade to delegitimise the concept of a government actively intervening in the economy when required to protect its people.
Undoubtedly on the back of Wednesday’s pathetic National Accounts figures the Government will attempt to use Professor Makin’s report to dampen expectations of a stimulus in the future to support economic growth and employment levels.
The attempts to demonise Labor’s actions during the GFC and constant exaggeration about deficit and debt are more than just the third-rate trickle-down rantings they seem, it is an attempt to rewrite history and discredit the necessary and appropriate intervention governments should make in the economy to support growth and protect workers.
Friday 12 December 2016
MEDIA CONTACT: NATHAN JOHNSTON 0488 176 452
