Wayne Swan says media reports that his position hangs in the balance and that he should resign over the OzCar affair are "ridiculous" and "absurd".
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the treasurer should resign over misleading parliament about trying to help Queensland car dealer John Grant, a friend of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, get a government-backed loan.
"I regard that ... as completely completely ridiculous, even absurd," Mr Swan told the Nine Network in reference to Sunday's newspaper headlines.
Mr Swan said he stood 100 per cent behind all of the statements he had made to parliament.
"If you look at the emails that are on the public record, what you can see is Mr Grant didn't receive any assistance from OzCar or Ford Credit. He didn't receive any assistance at all," he said.
Mr Swan said the Treasury dealt with Mr Grant in the same way as they dealt with other car dealers that were either making representations to members of parliament or directly to Treasury.
"Mr Grant was not treated any differently from any other car dealer," Mr Swan said.
An email chain produced at a Senate inquiry on Friday into the OzCar program showed that Mr Swan was being kept in the loop regarding Mr Grant's application for finance.
"The notion that because an update on a representation went to my home fax means that that was special treatment is just absurd again,' Mr Swan said.
He said he was merely being kept informed on what was going on in an industry that suddenly found itself struggling to raise finance due to the global financial crisis.
A key element of the OzCar affair is an alleged email from Mr Rudd's office to the Treasury official handling the government assistance program for car dealers, Godwin Grech, suggesting he should give Mr Grant priority.
No trace of the email can be found, and Mr Rudd has called in both the Australian Federal Police and the auditor-general to investigate the issue.
Mr Swan was asked whether he would be prepared to extend that inquiry over his conduct in the matter.
"What I would be happy for the auditor-general or anybody else to do is to look at all of the emails which demonstrate that Mr Grant was not treated any differently from anyone else," Mr Swan said.
He said the government wanted to get to the bottom of this "fake email" because it was the basis of a smear campaign, not only against the prime minister, but also against himself.
"The leader of the opposition has been making baseless allegations about it. When confronted with this yesterday, he ran away at a million miles an hour and terminated the doorstop," Mr Swan said.
"We do know that the leader of the opposition says he has documentary evidence of the email. We know he has told senior journalists that the email exists."
He said Mr Turnbull had got very serious questions to answer.
"Mr Turnbull's in the cross-hairs now. He's got 24 hours to produce this email or he should resign," Mr Swan said.
Deputy Prime Minster Julia Gillard also said Mr Turnbull had no option but to resign.
"Mr Turnbull's got a very big problem," Ms Gillard told ABC television.
"It turns out that there is no such email so Mr Turnbull ... has got a pretty big decision to make, he can either produce the email that he's been carrying on about for days or he can tender his resignation.
"His credibility has been so shot that there will be no other alternative."
Ms Gillard questioned the evidence that the official Mr Grech presented to the inquiry on Friday.
"Mr Grech obviously said at times during his evidence that he wasn't sure, he was at no point definitive about the evidence."
She also defended the representations made to the treasury on behalf of Mr Grant from Mr Swan's office.
"It's part of the ordinary thing that politicians do and ministers do to assist people."
"You get an inquiry, someone's worried, someone's anxious and you refer them to the right part of the government to get the assistance they need."
Ms Gillard said the affair did not warrant her coming back from the United States, where she has been meeting members of the Obama administration, including vice president Joe Biden.
"I think I should be proceeding on the work that I have committed myself to do."
The prime minister meanwhile says Mr Turnbull has 24 hours to produce the alleged email at the centre of the OzCar affair or resign.
Speaking outside a church in Canberra, Mr Rudd said there was a ticking clock for Mr Turnbull to provide to parliament the authentication of the email on which the entire case against himself, the treasurer and the government was based.
"Mr Turnbull and the Liberals have been boasting for a long time now that they are in possession of this information. Well the time has come to produce this information to the parliament for authentication," Mr Rudd said on Sunday.
"If when parliament resumes in 24 hours, Mr Turnbull fails to produce this email, this email upon which his entire case against the government is based, for authentication he has no alternative but to stand in the parliament, apologise, and to resign."
AAP
