Blathering ... really.

Typical, just because I have a stutter ... really I am offended at your insensitivity to my speech defect. Mind you that's quite typical of the personal attack style of Labor ... isn't it? Maybe with Roxon's proposed nannyism I'll be able to sue you.

'...because the GFC made policy incredibly difficult and on balance, some spectacular fiascos notwithstanding, they did a reasonable job, as several international assessments have made clear.'

That James is the Labor mantra.

You repeated it and accused me of not actually reading what people write. Are you in fact the real blatherer?

Or did you forget you wrote that.
Or are you into the typical denial of Gillard and her bunch of fools? ie always denying what they say.

You leftie fools with your slippery elaborate deceptions really do make me laugh. Roll on the election James.

As the AOFM annual report also noted, “the government has highlighted its commitment in the last two budgets to maintaining a liquid CGS market and it will continue to monitor the size of the market in relation to liquidity considerations.”
So despite which side wins the next election, despite the overblown rhetoric from some about the rise in gross government debt and working on the reasonable assumption that we are set to get a run of budget surpluses, gross debt will rise.
The more pertinent question is what the government will do with all the money it raises from issuing bonds that it doesn’t need. A nice problem for any government to have

The purpose of the Australian Government Future Fund is to fully fund the future superannuation payments of public servants, which currently come from the federal budget.
In March 2007 the opposition Labor Party announced it would withdraw A$2.7 billion from the Future Fund to finance a broadband initiative across Australia if it won the 2007 election; this proposal prompted government ministers to proclaim that Labor intended to "raid" the Future Fund for their own means.[2]
Labor later indicated that the use of any funds from the Future Fund towards a national high speed broadband network will have to comply and meet all requirements of any commercial investment. This included producing a commercial rate of return on the invested funds, with all profits being returned back into the Future Fund allowing further investment.
In the 2008–2009 Australian Government Budget, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan announced that the Future Fund would manage three new funds established by the Government:[3]
• Building Australia Fund – An infrastructure fund to improve and create major infrastructure projects (including road, rail, ports and broadband) with an initial allocation of A$20 billion. At 30 September 2011, it was valued at A$7.9 billion, an increase of A$2.5 billion on the previous's value.[4]
• Health and Hospitals Fund – A health infrastructure fund to provide increased spending on hospitals, medical equipment etc. with an initial allocation of A$10 billion. At 30 September 2011, it was valued at A$4.31 billion.[4]
• Education Investment Fund – A fund to provide capital investment in higher education and vocational education and training, with an initial allocation of around A$11 billion; including A$6 billion from the Higher Education Endowment Fund, of which it absorbs. At 30 September 2011, it was valued at A$4.89 billion.[4]

• Mr Keating accused Mr Costello of presiding over the growth of Australian debt abroad from $129 billion in 1996, to $705 billion in 2007.
• ''The Future Fund is all about national savings, yet, during Costello's period as treasurer, national savings were so depleted,'' he said.
• ''Costello was a policy bum of the first order who squandered 11 years of economic opportunity.''

579,

Whatever drivel you try and post, the results are indisputable.

Howard came to power in 96 when Labor left a record deficit of over $90bn and in 2007 left no federal debt and tens of billions in the bank.

Juliar/Krudd came to power in 2007 with tens of billions in the bank, and in 5 short years of economic vandalism left record deficts and a debt greater than $170bn.

What do we have now, but Whine Swan quietly ditching his cast iron promise to produce a surplus, and Juliar committing the country to tens of billion of additional annual spending with no possibility of funding it other than from borrowings.

You miss a key point, Shadow Minister.

The Howard/Costello years were notable for the ability of the government to extract from the pockets of every Australian a whack of taxation, that allowed those coffers to be filled to the brim. We, collectively, put the money in the bank, not "the government". Their task was to make the extraction as unnoticeable as possible.

And simply because this was a period of global prosperity, the average punter did not notice the government's hand constantly lightening their wallets. It is not quite such a simple trick to pull off today, in the world's slightly more straitened circumstances.

You seem to think that increased taxation of businesses and the individual is somehow preferable to borrowing. Could you tell us, perhaps, how addressing the impact of the GFC by adding to the citizenry's tax burden would have improved the situation.

Sheesh, and I thought it was the Socialists who loved taxation more, obviously it is you conservatives.