John Hewson, running dog for the City of London

Dr John Hewson is a tool of the City of London’s 30-year demolition of Australian industry who, like his partner-in-crime Ross Garnaut, is pushing the carbon tax to finish Australia off, Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood charged today.

“Every mug who rocked up to the carbon tax rallies on Sunday is being suckered by the City of London bankers for whom John Hewson and his accomplices smashed Australian manufacturing and family farms and reduced the national economy to a globalised quarry,” he said.

“Their carbon ‘price’ has got absolutely nothing to do with the environment; instead, it is an economic assault on Australia, a continuation of the free trade, financial deregulation ‘reforms’ instigated by Hewson personally in the late 1970s on behalf of the City of London’s Hill Samuel bank [now Macquarie Bank].

“The very people who shut down our factories, drove 100,000 family farmers off the land, and gave us an unstable currency, high interest rates, privatisation, private toll roads, the GST, unaffordable housing, and an unpayable $1.3 trillion foreign debt, are the very people who want to hit us with the carbon tax.”

Mr Isherwood detailed Hewson’s record as a flunkey for the City of London:

• In 1975, Hewson was deployed from his U.S. job at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was dictating financial deregulation to the world, to spearhead such ‘reforms’ in Australia, first at the Reserve Bank and then as economic adviser to Fraser government treasurers Phillip Lynch and John Howard.
• Hewson personally organised the Campbell Committee, the Australia Financial System Inquiry, headed by Keith Campbell, to ‘recommend’ the float of the dollar and opening Australia up to foreign banks. Committee member Keith Halkerston was a close business associate of Hill Samuel Australia, a subsidiary of the politically-connected Hill Samuel of London (whose longtime chairman was deputy head of intelligence for the British Foreign Office), which prepared years in advance to manage the dollar float.
• At the same time he was economic adviser to Treasurer John Howard, Hewson worked for Hill Samuel, preparing it to take advantage of the reforms recommended by the Campbell Committee.
• Hawke and Keating gleefully implemented the Campbell recommendations when they took power in 1983, and Hill Samuel Australia rebranded itself as Macquarie Bank, with John Hewson as Executive Director. Macquarie both directed, and was the chief beneficiary, of the Hawke-Keating economic reforms, including compulsory superannuation and national competition policy.

Mr Isherwood continued, “Hewson’s history shows he is nothing but a lackey for the City of London, an economic hit man like his fellow carbon economist Ross Garnaut.

“It’s time to stand up to these crooks and their City of London masters, by not swallowing their carbon tax scam, but instead adopting protectionist, national banking policies to reindustrialise Australia.”