The run-up to Joe Hockey's second budget appears to have become open season for past treasurers.
The day after former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello described the Abbott government's approach to taxation as a "morbid joke", his Labor successor Wayne Swan says he sees some good coming out of the Liberal Party's "dishonesty" at the 2013 election.
"Their assault on our social safety net has had one positive by-product," Mr Swan told the party faithful in Brisbane on Wednesday.
"We are now having a much more open discussion about the role of fairness in the economy and society."
The radical agenda of the "Abbott Tea Party Liberals" was attempting to take Australia down the US road of wealth concentration.
At the same, time US economists and politicians looked to Australia as a road map for a more inclusive society.
Mr Swan said powerful vested interests working through the government had attempted to dismantle the social safety net, shift the tax burden onto working people and away from corporations, and to dismantle universal health and education services.
Labor must not despair and must stand its ground against the illusion that these oligarchs operate in the national interest, he said.
"They plainly don't."
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