JUST 24 hours into her new role as Opposition Treasury spokeswoman, Julie Bishop has been accused of stealing the words out of someone else`s mouth.
Treasurer Wayne Swan dubbed Ms Bishop "shadow minister for plagiarism" after she directly quoted from a US newspaper article during her parliamentary response to a ministerial statement on Monday.
Extracts provided to The Daily Telegraph yesterday showed two sentences in Ms Bishop`s address were identical to paragraphs in a September 20 Wall Street Journal article on the US bank bail-out.
As the new Opposition frontbench was forced on to the back foot, Mr Swan said: "I`ve taken advice from many quarters but I`ve never stolen something directly from the Wall Street Journal - and I`ve never passed it off as my wisdom.
"It (her response) did ring a bit of a bell - now I know why."
Mr Swan described Ms Bishop - who also stumbled on the Reserve Bank`s cash rate during a radio interview - as the "Helen Demidenko" of Australian politics, a reference to the Australian woman who posed as the descendant of Ukrainian war criminals to write an award-winning novel.
"Two gaffes in 24 hours - that`s quite a start from people lecturing others about competence," he said.
And in another free kick for the Government, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull slipped up on radio yesterday by confusing teams and football codes.
He said his AFL team was "the Roosters" but later changed his mind to the Sydney Swans.
During her radio interview on Monday, Ms Bishop - who admitted that she would be taking advice from former treasurer Peter Costello - was unable to correctly nominate the Reserve Bank official cash rate, currently 7 per cent.
"The cash interest rate at present is ... seven ... I`m just trying to think," Ms Bishop said.
"Was it 7.25 (per cent)? I`ll have to go and check that one."
Ms Bishop said she correctly identified the interest rate and denied personally plagiarising the article.
She described the Treasurer`s attack as pathetic, childish and puerile.
"The Treasurer of the country is facing some of the most dramatic financial consequences the world has seen, let alone Australia, and he spends most of Question Time taking pot shots," she said.
Her frontbench colleague Eric Abetz defended her slip-up, saying anyone could get figures wrong.
"She`s very new in the job, she`s a very excellent, competent person, I think we all would acknowledge that from both sides of politics," he said.
