NO.012

LABOR’S DEMAND THAT THE FUTURE FUND BE A “LOCKED BOX” – R.I.P.

“It has to be a locked box. We have to make the Future Fund a locked box.”
“… We’d like to see parliamentary oversight and complete transparency.  It’s very important there is public confidence in the Future Fund and that it is a locked box that can’t be raided by the National Party, Peter Costello or anybody else.”

– Wayne Swan, Doorstop Interview, 7 November 2005

“The whole point of the Future Fund was to have Budget surpluses and the proceeds of asset sales put in the hands of independent experts and locked away in a box.”

– Wayne Swan, Doorstop Interview, 18 August 2005

 “We can’t have the Future Fund being plundered by the National Party as they’ve plundered the Budget for years. It has to be a locked box.”

– Wayne Swan, The Age, 8 November 2005

“We have to make the Future Fund a locked box.”

– Wayne Swan, Courier Mail, 8 November 2005

“We need a Future Fund which is a locked box, where the proceeds of asset sales are placed so they can’t be raided by the National Party.  But when it comes to the Future Fund – we don’t support the sale of Telstra in the first place – but if there are going to be asset sales they should be put away for the benefit of the Australian people in the long term, not in the short term political interests of John Howard or Peter Costello or Nick Minchin.”

– Wayne Swan, Doorstop Interview, 26 August 2005 

“During the Budget, the Government said there would be a locked box, a Future Fund which would be completely independent.” 

– Wayne Swan, Australian Financial Review, 19 August 2005

“Because Peter Costello announced in the Budget a Future Fund which he said would be a locked box.”

– Wayne Swan, Doorstop Interview, 17 August 2005

The Opposition will support the Future Fund “if it was a locked box and couldn’t be raided by the National Party”.

– Wayne Swan, Australian Financial Review, 11 May 2005

“Instead of a ‘locked box’ safe from the grasping hands of the National Party, the Future Fund’s investment strategy can be directed by Ministers, who are entitled to ‘consider broader policy and national interest consolidations’.”

 – Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner, Press release, 7 December 2005

CANBERRA

21 March 2007