The retiring member for Lilley didn’t actually whistle The Red Flag during his parliamentary swansong, though there were dog whistles aplenty for friend and foe alike.
Wayne Swan was and remains a hard man of Australian politics.
He is a political hater in the Jack Lang, Paul Keating mould.
He departed as he arrived, an Orwellian orator, an unrepentant, unreconstructed class warrior, a self-promoting historical and political revisionist.
His valedictory speech was as nuanced as a swift kick to one’s delicate nether regions, notable for those it pointedly ignored as much as those it mentioned.
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