First some context:There is a pattern here. When errors are...

First some context:

There is a pattern here. When errors are pointed out to Treasurer Wayne Swan, he responds with abuse:

WHEN top accounting firm BDO warned Wayne Swan in 2011 that his mining tax could fail to collect much revenue, the Treasurer reacted by accusing it of “substantial errors” and “distorting the public debate”.

More than a year later, John Murray, the BDO partner who crunched the numbers and issued what now appears to be a prophetic warning about the design flaws of the tax, describes the impact of Mr Swan’s public attacks on him as “horrific"…

He told The Weekend Australian he was still affected by Mr Swan’s attacks on his credibility and maintained he was simply trying to warn the Treasurer that he should not commit billions of dollars in spending from revenues that would never be raised....

Same story when miner Twiggy Forrest pointed out the very flaw that turned Swan’s mining tax into a dud:
WAYNE Swan has accused mining magnate Andrew ‘’Twiggy’’ Forrest of trying to avoid paying tax, describing as ‘’bunkum’’ new analysis suggesting the world’s biggest miners would get a free ride under Labor’s mining tax…

‘’We have been through a comprehensive process and there are some that are unhappy about it because the truth is they don’t want to pay any tax.’’…
Mr Forrest said new analysis by accounting firm BDO revealed Treasury forecasts of an $11 billion budget boost from the MRRT were an ‘’absolute fiction’’.

Same again, when Swan is warned his carbon tax will hurt the economy without changing the climate:
The man who has managed the Australia’s multi-billion dollar Future Fund for six years has delivered a stinging broadside to the Government’s carbon pricing scheme, calling it “the worst piece of economic reform” he has ever seen.

David Murray ...this morning told Radio National that the carbon tax is “very bad” for the Australian economy…
Treasurer Wayne Swan says the carbon pricing scheme is “world’s best practice”.
”Mr Murray is a well-known opponent of the science of climate change,” he told ABC News 24.

Same deal when Swan was warned high costs and red tape here was driving mining investment to low-wage countries overseas:
In a video posted on the Sydney Mining Club’s website, [mining entrepreneur] Gina Rinehart highlighted how Australia was becoming a high-cost place to do business because of the mining and carbon taxes, red tape and high wages…
Mr Swan ... seized on the latest comments.
“The only Australian not getting sick and tired of this almost-daily pearl-rattling from Gina Rinehart is her loyal servant Tony Abbott,” he said.

Niki Savva says Swan will shoot the useful messenger:

Stories abound about his extreme sensitivity to real or perceived slights. A couple of years ago one business leader delivered an innocuous speech setting out areas for reform including tax, skills, infrastructure and regulation.

This newspaper led with the story, saying the speech reflected concerns in the business community about the pace of reform. That morning, a senior member of Swan’s staff rang the businessman’s offsider to inform him: “I had to peel the Treasurer off the roof after he read The Australian.”
Often the Treasurer makes his precious-petal phone calls himself and, combined with his deeply personal attacks on individuals, they have muffled public criticism.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer recognised abuse as the very last trick of person whose arguments have collapsed. In his essay on rhetoric, recently republished as The Art of Always Being Right: Thirty Eight Ways to Win When You Are Defeated, he lists such sliming as tactic 38:
A last trick is to become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst.... But in becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack to his person, by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. It is an appeal from the virtues of the intellect to the virtues of the body, or to mere animalism.

I don’t think it’s safe to have as Treasurer a man who abuses people who are right. Who abuses especially people who are right.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)

UPDATE
Talk is on - even among Gillard supporters - of dumping Swan. But if Gillard thinks she can dump Swan to save her own job she really is delusional:

Labor MPs also agree Julia Gillard will not and cannot shift him from Treasury because they are “joined politically at the hip” and he would not shift if it damaged the Prime Minister’s leadership and helped the revival of Kevin Rudd. But as one Labor figure said yesterday: “The political calculation may now be different and a shift for Swan may help Julia Gillard and hurt Kevin Rudd.”

While saying it was unlikely, others have confirmed the only way for Swan to shift would be to tell the Prime Minister he was moving as Treasurer and allowing another Gillard supporter to move into the job.

One barrier once said to be in Rudd’s way is that several senior Labor Ministers would quit rather than serve under him again. Since then one of those Ministers, Nicola Roxon, has quit anyway. If Swan were also to go, a Rudd return would be even more seamless.

UPDATE
Judith Sloan audits Wayne Swan’s record as Treasurer:

Compare the achievements of Keating and Costello with Swan’s tenure as Treasurer. Undisciplined spending, failure to implement sensible tax reforms, handouts to industries such as the car industry that have no future, spin and non-delivery of core promises. He has been much more concerned with redistribution than increasing the size of the economic pie.

Swan will go down as the Treasurer who was gifted an amazingly strong fiscal position, only to blow it on Labor follies. His term as Treasurer has coincided with the highest terms of trade in living memory - dizzying heights that have persisted for several years - and yet there is little to show for it.
He has failed to achieve any significant microeconomic reforms, has ignored the states and has added layers of regulations to doing business. His relationship with the business community is sour and unproductive. The Australian economy is much less competitive than it was five years ago.

Source: Bolt Blog