Wayne Swan 27 July 2011
Banana prices are up 470 per cent compared to where they were prior to the natural disasters with some people paying as high as $14 a kilo.
Wayne Swan 27 October 2006
This is the Treasurer’s banana alibi again. The truth is core inflation has been rising.
…
The problem is the Government has put all its eggs in its commodity basket and mining is very important to the Australian economy and a huge generator of wealth but it has precious little to say about the services sector of the Australian economy and the manufacturing industry. For example, the manufacturing industry has growth going backwards but the Government doesn’t regard it as a problem. We’ve got to have a much more balanced approach to economic development which pays attention to the needs of our manufacturing sector and our services sector. Once again, that comes back to investing particularly in the skills of our people, making sure we’re innovative in the way we work and the way in which produce products, it means putting incentive into the tax system and it means really attending to the infrastructure bottlenecks. On all these questions the Government is missing in action.
(HT: Token)
Gillard is veracity challenged; Swan is intellectually challenged.
DavidLeyonhjelm
27 Jul 11 at 3:24 pm
Hahaha. Great catch.
sdog
27 Jul 11 at 3:41 pm
Can Swan ever get it right on inflation? I seem to remember that very early on in the Rudd government, Swan was carrying on alarming declaring “The inflation genie is out of the bottle”, talking down the economy at a time there was more concern about economic growth than inflation.
Viva
27 Jul 11 at 3:50 pm
Innovation ?
Remonds me of a conversation I had a couple of years back with a WA Department of Industry type about the use of the term “innovate”.
Said ALP state government, after putting various impediments to mining etc activity, reacted when I mentioned it was not a useful policy, expected the industry to innovate to solve its problems, in stead of repealing the regulations.
I took it that the time honoured reaction to government iniiated impediments to activity is the discreet deployment of brown paper bags etc.
Those idiots thought that increasing taxes, and etc, would cause us to innovate rather than take our exploration and mining capital elsewhere, where returns were higher.
Louis Hissink
27 Jul 11 at 4:01 pm
You’re right, Viva. In May 2008 Wayne Swan was still rabbiting on about trying to put the inflation genie back in the bottle. Less than 9 months later Kevin announced his $42 billion “economic stimulus package”.
sdog
27 Jul 11 at 4:02 pm
(links for my comment above: inflation genie; stimulus)
sdog
27 Jul 11 at 4:04 pm
It’s yellow, it’s bent, and it’s from Queensland – and it’s not a banana
ACTOldFart
27 Jul 11 at 5:54 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtEyAe1QqCg
C.L.
27 Jul 11 at 6:16 pm
And they wonder why voters already have baseball bats in hand two years out from an election.
Dandy Warhol
27 Jul 11 at 7:15 pm
Yes, we have no bananas.
Infidel Tiger
27 Jul 11 at 7:19 pm
Song most often requested by Swan on the drive home.
His Comcar driver wears earmuffs.
Gabrielle
27 Jul 11 at 7:35 pm
Bananas……. sums up this government
Tal
27 Jul 11 at 7:56 pm
A friend just mentioned to me earlier…an interesting angle to this.
It would be interesting to ask Shane Wand why is he so worried about the price of bananas.
The aussie has been appreciating all year so imported prices have actually fallen.
Domestic inflation must be absolutely raging if we’re at the top of the RBA band with the Aussie appreciation quelling import prices.
Fuckkkkkk never thought of that.
JC
27 Jul 11 at 8:12 pm
Theres’ only ONE reason that bananas are $14 a kg. and it has NOTHING to do with floods (or inflation).
Peter Gallagher
27 Jul 11 at 8:26 pm
Token
27 Jul 11 at 8:46 pm
Lack of imports.
Fleeced
27 Jul 11 at 8:55 pm
Actually it was cyclone Yasi. And before that it was cyclone Larry.
Swan should just STFU. Closed mouth catches no flies. He’s so dumb he has stayed in Aust when all the half smart ministers flew off at the first sign of carbon ads.
pete m
27 Jul 11 at 9:02 pm
No, it’s lack of imports. There’s enough diversity in global supply, that a cyclone in one area should have minimal effect.
It’s just another protected industry… we should be getting bananas for $0.99/kg.
Fleeced
27 Jul 11 at 9:10 pm
“”"”No, it’s lack of imports.”"”
You have more faith in AQIS than i do.
jumpnmcar
27 Jul 11 at 9:16 pm
The industry in Australia can’t guarantee supply, and is unreliable. We should let it pass.
Fleeced
27 Jul 11 at 9:22 pm
The industry is basically subsidised, and then imports banned, so that we also pay 14 times as much as we should. Then on top of that, we pay handouts to countries in the region to help prop them up – which is generous and all – but we should instead just buy their stuff. We’re basically overpaying not just once, but three times, for an inferior product with an unreliable supply.
Fleeced
27 Jul 11 at 9:27 pm
See how the fruit cost problem has morphed into climate change, next thing it will be G W Bush and Hitler.
“Be afraid consumers, climate change is coming to get your food prices!”
Rafe
27 Jul 11 at 9:49 pm
Fleeced – no need to get worried. Just do what I do – boycott bananas.
That’ll learn ‘em better than words.
Dandy Warhol
27 Jul 11 at 10:14 pm
But I like bananas
Fleeced
27 Jul 11 at 10:17 pm
Instead of a Flood Levy, we should have a Banana Levy, whereby Rich People™ have to pay an extra 1.25% tax into a dedicated Bananas With Fairness fund.
This will allow our Benevolent Leader to subsidise the price of bananas so that they’re back down to the pre-cyclone price, allowing Wayne to get that Inflation Genie back into its bottle. WINNING!
sdog
27 Jul 11 at 10:27 pm
/sarc
sdog
27 Jul 11 at 10:30 pm
Swan committed to realising Labor hero Keating’s banana prediction:
Keating speaking to John Laws on Radio 2UE, May 14, 1986.
Ivan Denisovich
27 Jul 11 at 10:50 pm
Ivan:
And just to remind you… that comment flashed on our Reuter screen at lunchtime and as soon as I read that I went out and sold tons of aussie panicking the market. It was perhaps my best trading day that entire decade.. 14 May 1986. What a day.
I was perhaps the first trader to understand the gravity of that comment and how others would react.
JC
27 Jul 11 at 10:56 pm
Cut & Paste. Swan on ABC1′s Insiders program, July 30, 2006:
PETER Costello and John Howard’s banana alibi simply doesn’t stack up. You can walk down any supermarket in the country and see that fruit prices are up across the board.
Gabrielle
28 Jul 11 at 12:16 am
Sinclair. You were great on 2ue today
Herb
28 Jul 11 at 6:02 pm
Thank you.
Sinclair Davidson
28 Jul 11 at 11:32 pm
Sinclair why don’t you tell us in advance of your interviews? Or even afterwards?
Same goes for Judith. Another one worth listening to.
Gabrielle
28 Jul 11 at 11:37 pm
I had little advance warning myself. Many of my interviews are at very short notice.
Sinclair Davidson
29 Jul 11 at 6:45 pm
[...] Imagine a Parliament where there is little incentive to use the “banana alibi“. [...]
No More Mañana Or Bananas In A Parliament Of Nanna’s « Barnaby Is Right
14 Aug 11 at 12:03 am
[...] Imagine a Parliament where there is little incentive to use the “banana alibi“. [...]
No More Mañana Or Bananas In A Parliament Of Nannas « Barnaby Is Right
19 Feb 12 at 1:14 am