There are different categories of debt, which is why it is hard to get
a single figure. One is government issue bonds, which stand near
$250 billion. Other government borrowings are on top of that.

Our problem is how to repay the debt when growth is low and falling.
As our oil fields and gas fields are depleting the companies are
closing their Australian refineries. We will be dependant on imports
of refined product at escalating prices. Our imports currently cost
about $20 billion a year. When Bass Strait closes that import bill
reach about $30 billion a year.
That is an NBN EVERY year !

It is those figures that make Martin Ferguson the only adult in the government.
High immigration is a negative also as growth is low and everything
has to be divided by larger numbers.

There is no choice, but more saving and less fancy projects.

Just one moment there, sonofgloin.

>>Five years ago every man woman and child in Australia was in credit to the tune of .93 cents each.<<

Please explain?

There seems to be much confusion here about the figures.

Last figure I saw our government debt was $166 billion, so I expect it to be around $200 billion by Christmas. This is the amount the government has borrowed to run the country. This is the important figure and will mean at,say, 5% interest we will be paying about $10 billion/year in interest alone. To cover that interest and make any repayments on the capital it will mean that services will have to be cut and/or taxes go up.

NSW, Qld and Vic governments are now in this position with their state governments having to cut services to pay for the previous governments over expenditure. One can see from the daily news that people do not like it, but opponants fail to suggest where the neccessary cuts should be made.

An even bigger problem federally is that this government keeps promising massive annual spending like dental plan $4 billion, NDIS $10 billion? and education $6.5 billion. Either many are going to be bitterly disappointed or there will be massive rises in taxes. Remember these are annual running costs for these schemes, the funds have to come from somewhere.

Pericles>> Just one moment there, sonofgloin.

>>Five years ago every man woman and child in Australia was in credit to the tune of .93 cents each.<<

Please explain?<<

Pericles I took the $20 BILLION govt surplus that Kev inherited and divided it by the population, we were all in credit of roughly 90 cents per citizen. In the same manner I divided the Labor govt debt by the population and came up with $90K debit per citizen.

There's some pretty dodgy maths going on here.
Conflation of figures and imprecise language as well?

Labor debt? Total debt? Does 'Labor debt' include my mortgage?

A 'Budget surplus' does not mean a net saving with no debts. It means that the government collected more taxes than it was required to distribute to pay off debts and liabilities (i.e payroll etc). I'm pretty sure that the government was still in debt to the tune of approx 40 billion dollars in 2007.

This thread is silly.

Bugsy>> There's some pretty dodgy maths
Conflation of figures
Does 'Labor debt' include my mortgage?
A 'Budget surplus' does not mean It mean
In debt to the tune of approx 40 billion dollars in 2007.
This thread is silly.<<

Bugsy, I will put it as succinctly as I can for you:
The Fraser govt inherited NO debt from the Whitlam govt.
The Frazer govt passed on a debt of 40 billion to the Hawke govt.
The Hawke govt passed on a debt of 96 billion to the Howard govt
The Howard govt retired the debt and passed a surplus of 20 billion to the Kev govt.

These are facts Bugs, I didn’t dream them up, but I use them to make judgments …..try it…it will be some new sillyness for you to experience tiger.