Australia’s top economic official says Bruce Springsteen is his musical hero. That doesn’t make him a fan of New Jersey, the Boss’s home state.

“If I could distill the relevance of Bruce Springsteen’s music to Australia it would be this: Don’t let what has happened to the American economy happen here,” Treasurer Wayne Swan said in a speech in Melbourne today. “Don’t let Australia become a down-under version of New Jersey, where the people and the communities whose skills are no longer in demand get thrown on the scrap heap of life.”

Facing an election due late next year, Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s administration is trying to champion the cause of working-class voters, and Swan’s latest effort channels the American songwriter known for his blue-collar following. Quoting songs by Springsteen dating back to the 1970s, Swan cautioned against a widening of income inequality in his country, where a rising currency has hurt exporters.

Playing off New Jersey’s longtime image as a blighted former factory hub, Swan has reason to be concerned about job losses. Employers in Australia, with a population of 22.7 million, added 800 jobs in May and June, compared with the 27,500 added in New Jersey, which is home to about 8.8 million people, according to official data in both places.

Relative Unemployment

Even so, the state’s unemployment rate in June was 9.6 percent, the fourth-highest in the country and higher than the national American average of 8.2 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Australia’s jobless rate in June was 5.2 percent.

Swan, 58, is trying to help Gillard build public support for taxes on mining profits and carbon emissions that began July 1. Her government trails the opposition Liberal-National coalition by 12 percentage points, a margin that if replicated at the election due in the second half of next year would represent a landslide defeat.

Swan sparked the class-warfare debate earlier this year in an article in The Monthly Magazine, in which he said that resource tycoons including Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Andrew Forrest are threatening the nation’s democratic process by using their wealth to shape policy.

A Newspoll published in the Australian newspaper July 24 showed the ruling Labor party was favored by 28 percent of voters, down 3 percentage points from two weeks earlier, compared with 46 percent for the Liberal-National coalition. Taking second-preference votes into account, Labor was 12 points behind the opposition.

'Born to Run'

Swan’s spoke at the John Button lecture, named after a late industry minister in a previous Labor government. The Treasurer said Springsteen inspires him: On the nights of budget releases, he cranks up “Born to Run.”

“It’s a song about realizing that big and daunting responsibilities are just around the corner,” Swan said. “And it’s also a song about a way of life that was just starting to disappear.”

Another Springsteen fan is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who had a blue-and-white Fender guitar signed by the singer hung on his office wall. Christie has found himself at odds with the singer known as The Boss, who criticized budget cuts for services to the poor last year, according to NJ.com.