Swan ridiculed for invoking rock star for attack on billionaires

Australian opposition parties poured ridicule over treasurer Wayne Swan for invoking his hero Bruce Springsteen in a renewed attack on mining billionaires, while one of his targets, Clive Palmer,  slammed him for lack of musical patriotism.

''It says everything about this government that is guided by the principles of a rock singer, rather than any enduring philosophy that builds a stronger nation,'' shadow treasurer Joe Hockey told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Describing Swan's John Button lecture as a ''look-at-me speech'', he said: ''You have got the clown trying to run the circus.'' Hockey said, to him rock music was entertainment, not ''as the benchmark of guiding principles for the destiny of a nation''. He added took inspiration from the likes of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill or a Robert Menzies.

If Springsteen was the right benchmark ''then we might as well have Glenn A. Baker and Molly Meldrum running the country - and they would do a far better job than the current mob'', Hockey said.

In his speech which portrayed Springsteen as a working class hero who had influenced him from the 1970s, Swan said the only regret he had about his attacks in his Monthly essay on Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest was that he had not come down on them harder. In the essay he accused them of seeking to buy excessive influence in their own self-interest, which he said had been borne out by their subsequent actions.

"Poor man want to be rich, rich man want to be king, and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything."