Look I m happy to agree that the quote may not have been a turning point in the election my POV is that it was there is at least the timesonline article which agrees but it obviously depends on who you ask there is a lot of revisionism with such things However I do think that the quote is notable The main evidence of this is Treasurer Swan s use of the word reckless in the Laurie Oakes interview TREASURER Well the most important thing we ve got to do from a national level is to show some leadership by the national Government which is to get rid of reckless spending That s why we said during the campaign we would make savings of 10 billion and that s why we ve set ourselves the objective of making further savings through this budget process You see we are seeing almost daily evidence of reckless spending from the former government Only yesterday Mr Turnbull admitted that he increased a grant to a friend five times originally recommended to him at 2 million and given to the recipient at 10 million That era of reckless spending is over We need a new era of fiscal discipline and that is what the Rudd Government is determined to put in place so we can play our role in tackling inflation and taking some of the pressure off the Reserve Bank emphasis mine This was an interview after the election it is clear that the quote informed their immediate post election policy it was not a throw away line Swann says getting rid of reckless spending is the most important thing they had to do Actually this might also be worth including in the Wayne Swan article