What else is he going to say, I suppose, but say it he did: Labor’s record spending while in power has been used as an attack for years. Wayne Swan, responsible for the debt, says he’s proud of it. That is exactly what he said in his Swan Song, his final speech to Parliament.

The man responsible for the billions lost on school halls and pink batts, and up to his ears in the NBN disaster is proud of his legacy of debt and the subsequent years of slow growth. The fall in real incomes across the labour force even today is his legacy. There are unfortunately Keynesians everywhere. But if he thinks he has left behind a how-to manual on dealing with a downturn then that is the greatest worry of all.