In this podcast we talk with Wayne Swan, the Labor Party National President. Swan was treasurer and deputy prime minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he wanted to ‘revitalise and renew and refocus’ the commission with Barrett’s appointment, recognising that ‘productivity has evolved’.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
New treasurer Jim Chalmers was part of Australia’s successful effort to avoid the last US-led “great recession” in 2008. He may need to draw on those lessons sooner than we’d like.
Intellectual and a talented communicator, Chalmers may turn out to be a far more innovative politician than his current cautious election rhetoric suggests.
The ALP national executive has deployed sweeping intervention in the wake of the ‘branch stacking’ scandal.
‘I may be worried about nothing if the Democratic primary process does its job of whittling down the agenda to something more manageable,’ wrote Swan.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Writing in the American progressive journal Democracy, Swan, a former treasurer, warned that the US Democrats could be at risk of the overloaded agenda trap that helped defeat the ALP in May.
Butler painted the May 2019 defeat darkly, calling on Labor to “not sugar coat the result”.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Former national president of the ALP Mark Butler called for a root and branch overhaul of policy on Monday, in sharp contrast with the current ALP president, Wayne Swan.
Politics podcast: Wayne Swan on Labor’s byelection victories and beyond
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Incoming national president and outgoing MP Wayne Swan dismissed the notion that party reform is on that agenda saying there "is no issue ... my priority is winning the battle of ideas.”
Wayne Swan has drawn a parallel between the the ALP’s ‘Laborism’ and New Labour’s ‘Third Way’ in the UK.
Number 10/flickr
While both parties may have set out to modernise and renew their ideologies, the ALP’s and Labour’s attempts to marry the old and new instead precipitated two separate identity crises.
Former Treasurer Wayne Swan has set his sights on BHP’s tax practices.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
As a veteran of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, former treasurer Wayne Swan is a politician with a great deal of experience with parliamentary instability.
Treasurers throughout Australia’s history have used their budget role to reach out to people.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
A budget speech that fails to discuss basic measures of how the economy going is revealing in itself. Joe Hockey is the first treasurer since at least 1981 not to mention GDP.
Wayne Goss claims victory in the 1989 Queensland election, when Labor won government after 32 years in opposition.
AAP/Queensland ALP
Thank you, Queensland. You’ve been good to me. I hope I’ve left you a better place. So said Wayne Goss as he resigned the role of premier on February 19, 1996. He had served since the election in December…
Julia Gillard’s My Story is about defending her legacy, but she is not blind to the faults of the Labor Party nor to her own mistakes.
AAP/Dean Lewins
Julia Gillard’s autobiography, My Story, presents a comprehensive defence of her prime ministership. Gillard dives straight into the heart of her story, beginning on the day she was sworn in as prime minister…
Kevin Rudd is once again the Prime Minister of Australia.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Labor has finally made the decision it ought to have taken long ago, but the counter-revolution has been extremely bloody and there are bodies all over the place. Not only is there a new Prime Minister…
Buying power doesn’t always stack up as the best measurement for who we are and how far we’ve come.
Shutterstock/ MaleWitch
In the verbal volley between Gillard and Abbott, Swan and Hockey, there is a conversation that we are not hearing. It bubbles below the consciousness of mainstream Australia, a conversation that is old…
Small tax, or Big Picture? Labor wants to be seen as low taxing, but are actually big spending reformists.
AAP
Regardless of the result of the next election, the ALP will hold an inquiry into what went wrong. How on earth, they will ask, could a government presiding over low unemployment, low inflation, low levels…
Wayne Swan’s budget has been met with mixed reviews.
AAP/Alan Porritt
There has been a mixed initial reaction to Treasurer Wayne Swan’s sixth budget from industry and community groups. Big business says it is disappointed with Wayne Swan’s sixth federal budget, laying doubt…