Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Wayne Swan, the Treasure and Deputy PM while he attended the local Federal Member’s (David Bradbury – Lindsay) opening of his new office. Mr Swan spoke at length about his views on politics to the assembled group and the importance of communities. He and David then highlighted the way that Labor had worked to support communities, and in particular, save local jobs for people. He specifically spoke about Labor’s success in dealing with the global financial crisis, which, I believe, is something that Labor should be rightly proud of. I was glad that I was with  David Currie, who understands financial trends and factors far better than I do – we talked later about the fact that part of the reason that Australia was able to navigate the GFC so well was because of the surplus that the Howard government left in place. Of course, another part of the reason was because Australian banks are so much more heavily regulated than their US or European counterparts, which in itself is, I believe, a legacy of the Hawke government, so I don’t think that Swan can claim all the credit for the successful navigation of the GFC. However, I think it is partly fair to say that the government used the resources that it had at its disposable to ensure that Australia managed to survive the GFC, with low unemployment.

Anyway, I also had the chance to speak privately with Mr Swan for a little while. I talked to him about the Trade Training Centre, and he pointed out that these ideas are originally from Queensland, and we agreed that there is a lot of important educational thought coming from Queensland at the moment, in particular the productive pedagogies stuff, as well. Anyway, I was fairly impressed at his depth of knowledge regarding education, considering I thought his main focus was economic policy.

Anyway, I got some photos on my phone. See below! And, yes, Wayne Swan is pretty short, so I look like the BFG next to him and David!