.....
Abbott and co inherited the best economy in the world, can they keep it going up?

Yep, courtesy of one huge credit card, for which we will be lucky if we can pay the interest alone.

Now, had they (labor) achieved something with their record debt, well that would be different, but name one thing they implemented, that they didn't stuff up, or under fund.

You are delusional Allen!

The ALP (Australian lying party) left a huge net debt with an interest bill of roughly $10bn or $200m per week that consumes 2.5% of government revenue.

The lying party also happily predicted revenue growth year after year of 7.5% and spent it ahead of time leading to a bombshell prediction of a deficit for 2013 of $30bn after predicting a surplus, which then turned out to be a serious under estimation.

These ratbags then decided to increase future expenditure by about $20bn p.a. with Gonski and NDIS without even trying to fund it.

This combined with the financial incompetence coming to light with the NBN, and the BER debacles shows why Labor should not be trusted with anything bigger than a tuck shop.

Just goes to show the congenital pessimism and moaning of we Australians is unsupported by the evidence.

We are very lucky.

We should be proud of our achievements and traditions of moderation.

I think the 24/7 News cycle (mainly reporting bad things) explains much of our pessimism. Not so long ago news programs were between 6pm and 8pm - now they're around the clock.

Have people noticed that every bad weather event and earthquake around the world is now reported - along with "no tsunami was detected"? We didn't use to get such repetitious doom and gloom reporting!

As somebody said a year or two back about consumer confidence "anybody would think Australia is experiencing financial problems as severe as those Greece".

Cheer up everyone.

Pete
(who has few possessions - seeing it as little to lose)

"OF Greece" of course (not) :)

Greetings Hasbeen.

re: We get posters like Kilmouski, who obviously think the most efficient way to spend our taxes is to give it to a public servant.

C'on give me a break please. Where on earth did I allude to anything like that?

Or perhaps you may explain how you arrived at that conclusion.

Drawing a bit of a long bow here!

Hello again,

@NeverTrustPoliticians, re: “I'm too shocked that anyone would think that socialist Labor left behind anything but an absolute mess, economically, to say more.”

Hmmm. Am I right in suspecting you listen to radio news, watch TV news and read Australian newspapers, NTP?

Because if you do, you will definitely be told that Labor left things in a mess. But the good news is that none of that is true.

To make sure, just go to the independent sources of data shown in the article. You will then see that Australia now has the best economy – not just in the world now, but at any time in history.

Or ask any economist you know which nation in history has ever had a better economy than Australia's in 2013. See what they say.

@Ludwig, immigration has helped Australia enormously, as it has most other high-intake nations.

As the data in all the links show, all nations with lower migrant intake than Australia's are faring much worse than Australia.

@JF Aus, that is most intriguing information. Thanks for articulating that.

I’ve never been to the Solomon Islands, although I have spent considerable time in PNG, some other Pacific islands and in the remote Aboriginal communities. So I endorse all your observations.

Would you consider writing 1000 words or so for OLO here?

@Shadow Minister, re “The ALP (Australian lying party) left a huge net debt with an interest bill of roughly $10bn or $200m per week that consumes 2.5% of government revenue.”

Are you sure SM? Or did you read that in the media?

So what do you make of the new Treasurer’s wish to expand Australia’s current modest debt ceiling up to a staggering $500 billion?

Do you agree with Mr Hockey before the election that debt was too high or with Mr Hockey after the election - and most sensible economists - that debt is too low?

Cheers,

Alan