Treasurer Wayne Swan has renewed his attack on three Australian mining magnates, saying his initial public criticisms of Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest did not go far enough.
As acting prime minister in March he challenged the “vested interests” of the billionaires in an essay published in The Monthly magazine, in which he accused all three of using their financial muscle to unfairly influence the national political debate.
“My only regret is not going in hard enough, because every criticism I made has been played out almost to the letter on our national stage,” he will say in a speech in Melbourne on Wednesday night.
Mr Swan said Mr Palmer was seeking Liberal National Party (LNP) preselection for a federal seat in Queensland and would use his immense wealth to buy influence and try to overturn government tax policies, despite having “skulked away” from a contest in the treasurer’s seat of Lilley.
Mr Forrest was bankrolling a major High Court challenge to overthrow Labor’s mining tax and Mr Swan has accused Ms Rinehart of seeking to manipulate public opinion by buying shares in Fairfax Media.
“So one tycoon is using his money to challenge the principle of fair taxation through electioneering,” Mr Swan will say, according to a copy of his John Button Lecture address obtained by AAP.
“A second is using his money to challenge it through the courts.
“And a third is using her money to challenge it by undermining independent journalism.
“Parliament, the constitution, independent journalism – all three are fundamental pillars of our democracy, being used as their playthings, supported every step of the way by the leader of the opposition.”
Mr Swan will also give the audience at the Wheeler Centre an insight into the music that inspired him politically.
A fan of Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen, he recalls listening to the US singer’s Born to Run single during the Whitlam government dismissal in 1975 and the bitter election that followed.
“The song has never left me,” he says.
“It’s a song about realising that big and daunting responsibilities are just around the corner.”
Mr Swan said the subsequent Springsteen albums were about the shifting foundations of the US economy, which economists took much longer to detect.
Springsteen questioned when ordinary people were going to get a fair go, Mr Swan said.
“Nothing has fuelled my own public life more than this question,” he said.
Mr Swan’s singer-songwriter daughter Erinn will play a Springsteen song to introduce her dad at the event, which is held each year in honour of Senator John Button, the Hawke-era Labor minister who died in 2008.
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