Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget?

It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt

When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund

It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus

That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy

Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same


According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car!

With the confidence killers in charge it will be a trillion when we drop punt them in 2019

It won't be Red Baron or his progeny. The government can only get money from people who have money; it's mates. However, they won't part with it, and the government's mates lawyers get the first crack at the cash stash.

Its the normal cycle in Australia, the Libs screw us down and the Labs piss it up.

I think $1Trn. The mess that is the NBN will have to be brought on Budget. There is nothing to lift employment so that will get worse and NewStart payments increase.

Then the idiots will panic. . .

All the Socialist indoctrinated Lefties can think of is Socialist SPENDING because in Socialism NOBODY EARNS anything they just spend other people's money until it runs out and then the IMF comes knocking. Maybe that's what Labor wants to happen ?

However a successful govt uses increased exports to earn money to pay for foreign govt debts created and left by the Labor imbeciles.

How is the shocking debt legacy left by the Labor imbeciles going ?

http://www.australiandebtclock.com.au/clocks

I'll lock in a) Anybody but the baby boomers.

Mike Trees has it right...Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind

I am not saying this as a Liberal supporter I'm saying it as a person who has witnessed over fifty years of both these mobs being in power

PS Shorten's projected budget in his budget reply will put us another 7.5 billion in the red...see what I mean? :D

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 6:35pm:

Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget? It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car!

It's impossible to pay off -
it will just increase over time.

Malcolm has copied Rudd -
he borrows $100M more each & every day.

The alternative is to take Australia into a recession or even a depression.

Jo and Joe Bloggs will be squeezed until it is paid while the mega-corporations and high flyers and other lice get away scot free....

... wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:11pm:

I'll lock in a) Anybody but the baby boomers.

Yeah - we earned our free ride by working when work was around..

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:12pm:

Mike Trees has it right...Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind

what a load of rubbish

Once, in a hundred years of govt. did the libs manage to pay off the debt And that was because of reform Keating had bought in and during a time when the whole world was booming, and they still had to sell of the farm to do so. Only an absolute fool would believe the crap about the libs being better economic managers.

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 6:35pm:

It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt

more bullsh1t

I live in the hope that one day, just one day, you might say something based on reality.

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:12pm:

Mike Trees has it right...Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind I am not saying this as a Liberal supporter I'm saying it as a person who has witnessed over fifty years of both these mobs being in power PS Shorten's projected budget in his budget reply will put us another 7.5 billion in the red...see what I mean? :D

What absolute crap!

Just one example, Treasurer Howard left a HUGE mess behind! PM Howard did the same, we are STILL stuffed by the crap he and his dimwit Treasurer pulled.

Yes, there was a recession in the 1990s. That meant a Budget deficit. Big flipping deal! We had a HUGE Budget deficit after WWII and it did not stymie record growth. Deficits should be the default Budget setting anyway.

The Libs do nothing. This means the next Labor govt has to make up for Lib inertia and lack of vision of the preceding Lib govt. Howard could have built the NBN easy. Howard didn’t give a stuff about infrastructure, health or education, robbed all those Budgets.

Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind


Yes Baron Von Rubin, but try and tell the young ones today and they wont believe ya, they wont

Best example is useless Menzies. Tried to stop the Snowy Mts scheme, then just coasted, farting around with banning the commo Party etc. The vision of John Curtin, our best PM EVER by a country mile, kept things happening. Mid 60s, Menzies finally pisses off, Libs left with no vision. Holt and Gorton then Billy Bigears, total shambles.

Whitlam may have tried to do “too much too soon” but handed down three surplus Budgets and drags the country kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Stagnation and stagflation under Frazer/Howard, finally Hawke/Keating modernise the economy.

Libs good economic managers? Naaahhhhh!!!!!!!!

miketrees wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:27pm:

Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind Yes Baron Von Rubin, but try and tell the young ones today and they wont believe ya, they wont

a rather selective case of History there mike :D :D

ONCE the libs bought in a surplus. ONCE. and that wasn't because of their economic mgmt, that was because previous labor policies and then the libs sold everything.

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 6:35pm:

Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget? It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car!

http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Holidays/Saint_Patricks_Day/Laughing_hard.gif

I shouldn't laugh, really, as Mr Baron reckons posting in cliches is something which brings light and mirth to a discussion.

To me, it is like watching a one armed, one legged kid trying to qualify for the Grade Three Gymnast Team in Primary School.  Just awful to watch and evokes great sympathy.......and it would, if Mr Baron was a kid.  The prose is grotesque, artificial and tortuous.

:D

Aussie wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:41pm:

red baron wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 6:35pm: Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget? It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car! http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Holidays/Saint_Patricks_Day/Laughing_hard.gif I shouldn't laugh, really, as Mr Baron reckons posting in cliches is something which brings light and mirth to a discussion. To me, it is like watching a one armed, one legged kid trying to qualify for the Grade Three Gymnast Team in Primary School.  Just awful to watch and evokes great sympathy.......and it would, if Mr Baron was a kid.  The prose is grotesque, artificial and tortuous. :D

;D

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:12pm:

Mike Trees has it right...Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind I am not saying this as a Liberal supporter I'm saying it as a person who has witnessed over fifty years of both these mobs being in power PS Shorten's projected budget in his budget reply will put us another 7.5 billion in the red...see what I mean? :D

It didn't take Malcolm Fraser very long to piss the Whitlam surpluses away either. Swings and roundabouts really.

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:12pm:

PS Shorten's projected budget in his budget reply will put us another 7.5 billion in the red...see what I mean? :D

You think that is bad ?

To put it in perspective the current Liberal deficit (2016/2017) is $37B.

The projection for (2017/2018) that they will fail to meet is another $26B. That is the optimistic number.

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 6:35pm:

Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget? It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car!

On some topics you use some sense and knowledge but then you come up with rubbish like this.

You fail to consider the impact of Howard / Costello gearing the economy to require the best economic situation in a century to remain in surplus, they left the economy doomed to certain deficits.

You fail to factor in the GFC and devastating economic crash that took place.

You fail to acknowledge that all the economic analysis concluded that the Liberal oppositions proposed actions during the GFC would have led to recession and increased deficits and greater long term debt.

You fail to acknowledge that the Liberals since gaining office have been the ultimate of economic irresponsibility and incompetence. They did in fact manage to double the debt in half the time with no excuse except for them being highly skilled in economic ineptitude.

Remember it is now 4 years after the Liberals promised first surplus.

You fail to acknowledge that Australia won economic awards for out performing most of the world during the GFC.

Bobby. wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:13pm:

red baron wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 6:35pm: Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget? It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car! It's impossible to pay off - it will just increase over time. Malcolm has copied Rudd - he borrows $100M more each & every day. The alternative is to take Australia into a recession or even a depression.

You can avoid a recession by just borrowing more and bring in more migrants and encourage them to borrow as well ;) Borrow borrow borrow :D LOL

The Lefties just deny FACTS as the TRUTH means nothing to them because ALL they care about is ENDLESS WELFARE paid for by someone else.

Is that debt number before or after Dutton's Office refurb?   

Sir lastnail wrote on May 16^th, 2017 at 10:14am:

Bobby. wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 7:13pm: red baron wrote on May 15th, 2017 at 6:35pm: Who is the name of the Wide World of Sports is going to pay the half a trillion dollar debt that will ensue at the end of this budget? It is a given that Labor has managed to accrue most of this debt When John Howard left he also left a budget surplus and billions in a futures fund It didn't take long for that spending maniac Krudd to deep six that surplus That bloke should be hung drawn and quartered for the way he f.....ked over our economy Anyhow..along came Gillard who gave us more of the same According to Scomo we will be paying back 6 billion of it in the next budget, bloody hell 6 billion thanks; like buying a car and paying for it piece by piece I guess 6 bill will buy us a hubcap on a 500 billion dollar car! It's impossible to pay off - it will just increase over time. Malcolm has copied Rudd - he borrows $100M more each & every day. The alternative is to take Australia into a recession or even a depression. You can avoid a recession by just borrowing more and bring in more migrants and encourage them to borrow as well ;) Borrow borrow borrow :D LOL

Hi sir Nail,
& where does it end?
Will the debt eventually reach $3 trillion?
or twice our GDP.

Vic wrote on May 16^th, 2017 at 11:36am:

Is that debt number before or after Dutton's Office refurb?

The good ol' debt clock is trivially useless. It does not account for balancing capital inflows, entities that are debtors to us or the value of the assets procured with the debt.

Those who use it to make some kind of statement are quite ignorant and about as sharp as a bowling ball.

Whitlam had three surplus budgets, Fraser had zero. So much for Labor being the spenders.

The debt will be paid off by growing the economy, just like the post war debt got paid off, mostly by growth in the economy: Whitlam paid some out of the Budget surpluses but the debt had been mostly paid off by then—with deficit budgets every year until 1972!

So the idiot Libs by threatening the low paid are preventing the economy from growing. FTTH would have boosted GDP, jobs and exports. The idiotic Libs, for ideological reasons, FTTH was a Labor idea, killed FTTH and rolled out a shambolic copper internet over Telstra’s rotten copper. No gain to GDP, jobs or exports and the $60Bn crap will have to be ripped up and replaced with FTTH.

I think the Libs spend like drunken sailors. Howard certainly did and the Howard era spending and tax cuts is STILL stuffing up Budget and economic management!

Thanks for the critique Aussie

My posts are nothing..simply nothing compared to your monotonous manuscripts

Why reading your posts is the net equivalent of reading Acts of Parliament, wordy, heavy about as much fun as  eating plain rice for breakfast, lunch and tea (cliché) ;)

Herald Sun
October 22, 2014 9:14pm
GOUGH Whitlam was lucky his government was sacked in 1975. To our cultural elite, that turned him from a failure to a martyr.
That allowed the ruin he caused to gradually become obscured by the giant shadow of his myth. More ominously, it also allowed Labor to gradually forget what it learned, painfully, from Whitlam’s disasters.
So Labor today weeps for Whitlam and much of the media with it. The ABC’s massive coverage in particular has resembled the state-ordered mourning for a socialist dictator.
But how must this astonishing torrent of tears strike most Australians? Fact is, the elite’s verdict of Whitlam — the hero reformer, Great Leader and victim of a conservative conspiracy — has never been shared by most voters.
Aloof and arrogant, Whitlam was no man of the people and no prime minister was shunned by them so comprehensively — twice.
Whitlam ruled chaotically for just two years and 11 months until he was sacked by governor-general Sir John Kerr to end a damaging stalemate in the Senate, where the Opposition had cut off the scandal-racked government’s money.
The Left raged at the dismissal. On Monday, hours before Whitlam died, prize-winning author Peter Carey was still spluttering on the ABC that his sacking was a wicked conspiracy — “the US government destabilised and helped overthrow our elected government”.
But at the election the public wholeheartedly backed Kerr’s verdict, destroying Labor in a 44 per cent to 56 wipeout. Whitlam the martyr — bellowing “maintain the rage” — nevertheless held on to the Labor leadership, convinced he’d be seen in time as more sinned against than sinning. Instead, two years later the public made clear to Whitlam that he really, really wasn’t wanted, rejecting Labor again by another massive margin, 45 to 55.
There’s no sign that the public’s damning verdict ever changed.
The reason is simple. Whitlam may have had big dreams, but voters prefer to live their own.
What they value most are not the kind of grand gestures that had mourners this week ringing talkback to say Whitlam made them “proud to be Australian” — recognising communist China, demanding joint control of US spy bases here, signing a flurry of international conventions and replacing God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair.
What counts more is that a prime minister helps Australians to realise their own dreams — of a good job, a house, savings in the bank and proper schooling for the children, with work at the end of it.
But Whitlam gave them only as much — or as little — as a Big Government man can, quadrupling spending on health and education and letting wages explode by 28 per cent in a single year. Money fell from the sky. But Whitlam had little care for where it came from — so little, that the Labor Party even negotiated with Saddam Hussein’s Baath socialist party for a $500,000 loan to fight the 1975 election.
The disaster was inevitable. With the Budget blown and the international oil shock hitting a weakened economy, the Whitlam government saw unemployment nearly triple, the tax take double, the deficit blow out and inflation soar to almost 20 per cent.
Many Australians lost their jobs, their business, savings, dreams and hated Whitlam for what he’d done to them. A new generation of pragmatic Labor leaders — notably Bob Hawke — learned from the debacle. Whitlam was shunned and Hawke ministers used “Whitlamite” as the ultimate insult directed at colleagues who promised big government schemes with no care for the cost.
For these new leaders, the books had to balance and the workplaces had to tick over. It wasn’t romantic work, yet it made Hawke the great prime minister Whitlam never was.
But how far Labor has fallen. A new Whitlam emerged four decades later with Kevin Rudd, a leader with the same grandiose schemes and reckless spending, the same debt blowouts, the same incompetence, the same rising dole queues. In every way Rudd’s national broadband scheme is Whitlamite. Then Julia Gillard, an unrepentant Whitlamite, simply made things worse.
If only that were all. But Labor has forgotten other lessons it once learned from Whitlam’s fall — and many voters have forgotten, too.
Like many on the Left, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten this week praised Whitlam particularly for bringing in universal healthcare and giving people a bigger “shot at university”.
What Shorten didn’t actually spell out was that Whitlam had recklessly made both doctors’ visits and universities free. These “free” goodies, paid for by taxpayers, helped kick off our welfare culture, and later governments of both sides, alarmed by their cost, have tried to wind back Whitlam’s signature schemes.
The Hawke government reintroduced university fees and for a while brought in a Medicare co-payment, until public fury forced it to back down. Even today, the Abbott Government is trying to free us from Whitlam’s welfarism. Battling another Labor debt, it is trying to make students pay more for their degrees and plans its own Medicare co-payment.
YES, Whitlam made ambitious changes widely accepted as good, bringing in need-based funding for schools, transferring Crown lands to traditional owners, allowing no-fault divorce, legislating for equal pay for women, ending gerrymanders, decriminalising homosexuality and getting sewerage systems to many suburbs. He blew fresh air into power’s musty corridors and to many made Australia seem bigger, broader and brighter.
But other “reforms” came at

Red Baron = Misery loves company.

Red Baron is digging the boots into a dead man when the current budget problems are being created by his living mates, the Liberal government.

Red Baron, you and your progeny have already been excused from paying for the debt because you don't have any money.

Blather and defaming the dead won't reduce Australia's debt.

Perhaps such a stunning success as your good Philanthropist self Unforgiven, could write a cheque on behalf of the Australian people to retire our half trillion dlr deficit :D

red baron wrote on May 16^th, 2017 at 1:22pm:

Perhaps such a stunning success as your good Philanthropist self Unforgiven, could write a cheque on behalf of the Australian people to retire our half trillion dlr deficit :D

That would remove the reason for Red Baron's existence.

I am what I am

What 'am' are you? ;)

I want to kick in Red. Where should I go to kick in?

Red Baron implements his plan to pay off the debt:

http://stuppid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/kickinballs-final.jpg

Unforgiven sprung after a big night out!

---

Quote:

Herald Sun October 22, 2014 9:14pm GOUGH Whitlam was lucky his government was sacked in 1975. To our cultural elite, that turned him from a failure to a martyr.

Posting an opinion piece by Bolt and pretending it either means anything or contains any facts is a worry.

And the Frazer govt was such a scintillating success. . .

The grubberment has a plan

Pensioners are expensive, so they will target them to make sure they die as soon as possible
This is easy, just cut; cut; cut until they eother starve or die.

Then they can tax the workers more, and more and of course, more.

Then we cant have welfare, can we?
We can cut, cut, cut welfare.
It either work or die.
And in line with the howard plan, wages will be cut, cut, cut until everyone is a slave and must work for a pittance to survive.

Then just to make sure that they keep the workers down, energy costs will be increased.

There is only one no go area,
No way can the grubberment tax the rich, or multinationals or businesses.
In fact business has to be given more money to ensure the bribes to the politicians, seniour public servants and lobbyists keeps on flowing.....all day long

They have a plan

Libtards have a plan , to increase it to a trillion , forget about any budget surplus from them , Howard has sold everything already

Well everything , but the 1/3 rd of the gold supplies  :-/

sell more gold reserves at low prices?

stunspore wrote on May 17^th, 2017 at 8:59pm:

sell more gold reserves at low prices?

Why not they sold all of our essential services for about 20% of their value.

All the Lefties are worried about is their WELFARE.

Debt used to build infrastructure is how a good govt grows the economy as the improved infrastructure allows the economy to operated more efficiently.

Recall how the Labor imbeciles borrowed but then WASTED the while flamin' lot on useless Socialist Stupidity.

The Lefties just close their mindies to this by going into a deep denial trance and chant to themselves "I am entitled so the world owes me a living".

A good govt uses exports to earn money to pay off debt and to increase the amount of money flowing in the economy.

Recall how the blundering imbecile Gillard "govt" did the SAME thing as WA did during the mining boom spend spend spend without a thought for the future - the Dutch Disease.

WA was hamstrung by the Gillard imbeciles by not getting their fair share of GST.

And the croc swings Left and tries to discredit the OFFICIAL Debt Clock.

Check out the current debts around Australia:-   http://www.australiandebtclock.com.au/

By the time this shambles of corruption and incompetence is thrown out our gross debt will be around $1Trn. That will have been put there by 6 years of the most hopeless, incompetent and corrupt government this country has ever seen!

12 years of Howard had half destroyed out economy and 6 years of abbott/turdfull has done the rest! Neoconservatism does tend to destroy economies, add stupidity and corruption and you have the mess we see.

HI ALL

It is not Labor debt anymore, it is liberal.

Tomorrow it will be ?
Labor Liberal or Liberal Labor

Learn to live with it or turn rebel.

:-X :-X

Dnever it's only a worry if the information pubished is factually wrong...that article was right on the money

I lived through the Whitlam debacle as an adult

His Government was an economic disaster as recorded by that article

Everything went crazy...Whitlam's stooges were even trying to borrow money from the Muslims when they ran out of money

Whitlam spent like a legless sailor the only one who has managed it since is that egomaniac Kevin Rudd

Kerr may have sacked the Government but the public showed what they thought at the ensuing two elections they gave Labor the short shrift and brother didn't that false prophet Whitlam deserve it

red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:12pm:

Mike Trees has it right...Labor have historically spent like legless sailors and it has been historically the Libs who have come in with the bucket and mop to clean up the unholy economic mess that Labor has left behind

This is factually incorrect. Federal government spending as a percentage of GDP was actually higher under the Howard government, and the most profligate spending in the last half a century was during the last term of the Howard government, which thought nothing at all of wasting half a billion dollars a year in self promotion and spending tens of billions a year in middle class welfare. It was the Howard government that bloated middle class welfare with the baby boom and FTB spending, not Labor.

The "unholy economic mess" is also incorrect. When Labor came to power in 1983, they inherited an economic basket case from the Fraser government: double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, double digit unemployment - all at the same time. No other incoming government has inherited an economy in worse shape since the Depression. After the economic reforms of the Hawke and Keating governments, Howard inherited an economy in very good shape, a point he made during his 1996 victory speech. By the time he left office in 2007, he had bloated the Budget with additional spending and created a structural deficit. In their first term, Labor had to deal with the GFC that left every OECD country in recession except for Australia - and Australia only escaped because the Labor government made the necessary Keynesian decisions to boost the economy. As for the economy now, the Coalition have presided over the destruction of the vehicle manufacturing industry and the loss of a quarter of a million jobs with no credible new jobs for these workers being created, they caused massive uncertainty within the renewable energy industry and so stunted investment in renewable energy at a time when we really needed it and they have presided over the lowest rate of wages growth since the Second World War. No, the Coalition are not paragons of economic management.


red baron wrote on May 15^th, 2017 at 7:12pm:

PS Shorten's projected budget in his budget reply will put us another 7.5 billion in the red...see what I mean? :D

To be fair, Shorten has not indicated what cuts will need to be made. He doesn't have to, not yet. He can do as the Liberals do and announce his cuts after he wins his first election.

red baron wrote on May 18^th, 2017 at 2:36pm:

Dnever it's only a worry if the information pubished is factually wrong...that article was right on the money I lived through the Whitlam debacle as an adult His Government was an economic disaster as recorded by that article Everything went crazy...Whitlam's stooges were even trying to borrow money from the Muslims when they ran out of money Whitlam spent like a legless sailor the only one who has managed it since is that egomaniac Kevin Rudd Kerr may have sacked the Government but the public showed what they thought at the ensuing two elections they gave Labor the short shrift and brother didn't that false prophet Whitlam deserve it

That is ancient history because no member of Parliament from that time is still serving, so the record from then is largely irrelevant now.

Whitlam's economic management could certainly have been better, but there were very significant external factors at the time. The mid 1970's was the time of the oil shock, when rapidly rising oil prices caused stagflation (high inflation in a stagnant economy). No government anywhere in the world had ever experienced stagflation before, it wasn't even economic theory until it happened and nobody anywhere knew how to deal with it. Dealing with inflation by raising interest rates makes the economy worse; dealing with the economy by lowering interest rates increases inflation. Therefore, any government that has to deal with stagflation is stuck between an economic rock and a hard place.

Incidentally, Whitlam's government brought down three surplus Budgets out of three.

How the loans scandal became an affair to remember

The Age Newspaper
January 1, 2005

Gough Whitlam, second from right, in 1974 with cabinet members, from left, Rex Connor, Clyde Cameron, Jim Cairns and Lionel Murphy. The tumultuous political events involving them that year were topped only by the 1975 dismissal crisis.
Gough Whitlam, second from right, in 1974 with cabinet members, from left, Rex Connor, Clyde Cameron, Jim Cairns and Lionel Murphy. The tumultuous political events involving them that year were topped only by the 1975 dismissal crisis.

Related
Secret steps in Whitlam's 'funny money' affair
The year the government lost its head
The year the economy went 'bung'
Treasury was disloyal, says ex-bureaucrat
Medibank is born after long, difficult labour
Whitlam's symbolic gesture set agenda
Memo links Keating to 'loans affair'
What to do when a city is blown to pieces
PM won pay rise for Kerr
When it all went belly up
1974 and all that
The players

Treasury papers allow the most detailed look yet at the Whitlam government's attempt to borrow $4bn through a shady businessman, writes David Wroe.

'Lord forgive them, for they know not what they do," muttered Treasury head Sir Frederick Wheeler as he wrapped up another exhausting meeting. "Amen," agreed his colleague, Alan Bailey.

It was Monday, December 16, 1974. Two days earlier, prime minister Gough Whitlam and three of his senior ministers had agreed to borrow $4 billion from unidentified Arab oil sheiks through a shady businessman.

Wheeler and his "Treasury boys" were on a mission to protect the Whitlam government from itself and, in the process, protect Australia's finances and global reputation.

They half succeeded. Australia's reputation survived; the government did not.

Wheeler was a public servant in the classical mould - urbane, unflappable, a touch condescending and a stickler for precise record-keeping. Fearing the affair would end up in the High Court or a royal commission, he insisted his people keep records in "apple-pie order".

We have him to thank for the hundreds of pages of Treasury minutes, memos and transcripts of conversations - many released for the first time today - that allow a reconstruction of the infamous "loans affair" in more detail than ever before.

Between references to Swiss banks, Scotland Yard inquiries and oil sheiks, the documents show a government doggedly pursuing a hopeless cause, yet drifting because ministers were speaking different languages.

Most strikingly, they reveal how crippling hostility between the government and Treasury apparently nearly allowed Tirath Khemlani, a fawning Pakistani businessman, to swindle Australia out of $100 million.

The story begins with Rex Connor, Whitlam's minerals and energy minister, a burly former Wollongong unionist.

An old-style protectionist, he was determined to ensure Australia's mineral and energy resources stayed in Australian hands. He had a vision of securing a large, non-equity loan to pay for big mineral and energy infrastructure projects.

While Connor was dreaming of uranium mines, pipelines and coal liquefaction, labour and immigration minister Clyde Cameron met Khemlani through a mutual friend, Adelaide businessman Jerry Karidis.

Khemlani claimed he had access to petrodollars - Middle Eastern oil money looking for long-term investments.

Connor, Cameron and Khemlani met on November 11 in Canberra. Connor expressed interest in a loan of up to $US4 billion. Khemlani said he could help, but refused to reveal who the lenders were until he had a firm commitment from the government.

Khemlani then took off on a sprint around the globe before returning to Australia with a loan proposition in early December.

Wheeler heard rumours, but Treasury was not officially told of the plan until December 9, when Whitlam held a meeting with Connor, deputy prime minister Jim Cairns, attorney-general Lionel Murphy and senior bureaucrats, including Wheeler.

Treasurer Frank Crean was not invited. He regarded the loans affair as a ridiculous waste of time. Two days later he was replaced by Cairns.

Sir Frederick and Treasury were dubious. For a start, there was the size of the loan. $4 billion would have quadrupled the overseas debt. It equalled one-16th of Australia's GDP - equivalent to about $50 billion today. The period of the loan was 20 years, with the full amount repayable in 1994. At 7.92 per cent compound interest, the sum at maturity would be $18 billion.

Then there were the terms: suspiciously low interest but a high commission of 2.5 per cent, worth $100 million to Khemlani and his associates.

These objections and more were laid out in a memo on December 10 from Treasury deputy secretary John Stone to Cairns. "Why," Stone asked, "would lenders with such immense funds available . . . deal through virtually unknown commission agents?"

Above all, why was Khemlani refusing to disclose the identities of the lenders?

Stone's objections fell on deaf ears: by the end of 1974, the government did not trust Treasury. Disagreements over the inflation crisis and the government's 32 per cent increase to the federal budget had left a bubbling cauldron of mutual hostility.

Treasury then tried the back door. On December 12, Treasury official Ian Hay asked R. H. Dean, one of Australia's financial representatives in London, to make inquiries about Khemlani.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil price hikes

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The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil price hikes of 1973 had sucked billions of dollars into the Middle East. Many emirates were looking for places to invest money. But anyone wanting cheap loans had to discern the respectable bankers from the carpetbaggers.

The next morning Dean rang back. The Bank of England thought the loan was "funny money".

"The bank says that such large sums are simply not available from the Middle East, the Vatican, the Mafia or anywhere else," Dean told Hay.

Dean even spelt out the modus operandi of such middlemen. They would inject the deal with secrecy and urgency with a view to quickly obtaining a written commitment from the prospective borrower.

"Once this is done, the borrower usually realises that the deal is not going to be concluded and proceeds to back out of the contract," reads Hay's report of his conversation with Dean. "This in turn usually means that the prospective lender is legally entitled to claim the commission . . . without the lender having to produce one cent of loan funds."

Furthermore, Khemlani's London-based company, Dalamal and Sons (Commodities) was a new company with capital of just ££100. Its name was strikingly similar to an established, respectable firm, Dalamal and Sons, London. Hay asked Dean to contact British police to see what they knew of Khemlani. They knew nothing to confirm or deny his legitimacy as an global borrowing agent.

It took Treasury just a few phone calls to establish that Khemlani was, almost certainly, a fraud. The government had apparently satisfied itself with assurances from Sir Lenox Hewitt, head of Connor's department, that he had "checked on the bona fides of the persons negotiating the loan and is completely satisfied that the money is available", according to a Treasury memo.

Incredibly, the Treasury documents reveal that Sir Frederick Wheeler deliberately did not tell Cairns that the Bank of England thought the loan was a scam. Wheeler told one of his colleagues he "stood by his judgement" and that the information "would come out in another way". It appears that the mistrust was strong enough that Wheeler felt he could not alert the government to Treasury's covert inquiries.

On December 13, Wheeler registered Treasury's official opposition to the loan in a terse minute to Cairns.

That night Whitlam, Connor, Cairns and attorney-general Lionel Murphy held an Executive Council meeting, needed to give the loan legal authority. The other three empowered Connor to borrow up to $4 billion "for temporary purposes". The next day Whitlam headed overseas.

Debate has raged about whether the four did anything illegal that night. The phrase "for temporary purposes" brought the government untold strife. As the documents show, the original draft of the Executive Council minute said the money would be used to secure Australian ownership and control of its mineral and energy resources.

By this definition, the loan needed approval of the Loans Council, a body on which the states sat. Four states were non-Labor, and would almost certainly have vetoed the loan.

But by defining it as for "temporary purposes" - tenuous, given it was over 20 years and for large projects - the government could avoid Loan Council and parliamentary scrutiny.

The Executive Council minute was changed to say the loan was "to deal with exigencies arising out of the current world situation and international energy crisis, to strengthen Australia's external financial position, to provide immediate protection for Australia's supplies of minerals and energy and to deal with current and immediately forseeable unemployment in Australia".

The Attorney-General's Department advised that any state could challenge the loan in the High Court and would probably win. Cairns, who had been sceptical about the Khemlani proposal from the outset, said it was foolish to hide it from the states. It would come back to bite the federal government. He was ignored.

In the days that followed, the mechanics of the deal ground on. Despite still not knowing the identity of the lenders or where the money was being held, the government drafted a letter of acceptance, which Connor gave to Khemlani. Khemlani's behaviour grew more suspicious. He asked to have clauses in the documentation relating to his commission changed.

He insisted on a "show of strength" from the government in the form of a firm deal that he could take to his mysterious money lenders. His aims, Treasury guessed, were two-fold. When the government was inevitably forced to pull out of the bogus deal, Khemlani might try to extract his commission.

The second, and greater, fear was that Khemlani would use the letters Connor had given him to secretly drum up loan funds abroad that he could try to pitch to the government in place of the non-existent $4 billion. Australia's good reputation in international capital markets could be shattered if a man like Khemlani ran around claiming authority to negotiate loans for the Australian government.

Treasury's Alan Bailey ruefully told a colleague: "I'll never be able to show my face in Europe again."

At 10.15am on December 16, the Reserve Bank of Australia governor rang the president of the US Federal Reserve, who was worried that such a large amount in one lump sum would disrupt markets. Australia needed to have the loan paid through the US Federal Reserve bank.

The president's reaction to the deal was striking. Like the Bank of England,

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The president's reaction to the deal was striking. Like the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve had "grave doubts . . . that the loan would eventuate".

The Federal Reserve refused to handle money whose origin was so shadowy. It demanded to know who the lenders were.

The pressure was now on Khemlani. To keep things ticking over, he threw Connor a bone. The lenders, he said, were four separate emirates and the money was being held in nine prime European banks. The Union Bank of Switzerland would be the "post office" from which the money was collected.

A hand-written memo from Wheeler to Cairns makes it clear Treasury thought enough was enough. "Speak to the PM again and make the point that the whistle must be blown some time," Wheeler says.

The Reserve Bank of Australia and Treasury decided to put Khemlani on the spot by arranging for two of their men to travel to Zurich with him so that the proper assurances could be given by the bank with all players present. Khemlani, convincing to the last, cheerily agreed. Unfortunately, he missed the meeting, claiming an accident at Heathrow delayed his plane - a lie, as it turned out.

When Bailey from Treasury and a Mr Mallyon from the Reserve Bank presented themselves in Zurich, the president of the Union Bank of Switzerland blinked with surprise and said he had never heard of a Khemlani or of a $4 billion loan.

The jig, as they say, was up.

Finally, on December 21, Rex Connor faced the fact that the loan was not going to happen. He sent a telex to the Union Bank of Switzerland and a somewhat sharper version to Khemlani saying the proposal had "been examined by the Australian government, which has decided, in the light of information now available to it, that it will not further pursue the matter".

At a meeting with Cairns, Murphy and senior bureaucrats, Connor insisted: "All along the line, we have acted beyond criticism."

The three ministers drafted a short news statement in the event they received direct questions, but agreed not to initiate publicity about the loan. The documents released this year under the 30-year-rule finish at this point. But the legacy of the loans affair is well known.

Amazingly, Connor embarked just a month later on a new negotiation through Khemlani, with Whitlam's approval, this time for $2 billion. Cairns, the doubting Thomas of the quartet, walked into a similarly fruitless venture with his friend, Carlton Football Club president George Harris.

Connor and Cairns were eventually sacked for their roles in loans scandals as, ultimately, was the government when the Malcolm Fraser-led opposition used the issue as the trigger to block supply, sparking the constitutional crisis and dismissal of 1975.

As a year of tumultuous politics, 1974 was bested only by 1975, and documents to be released in a year's time will illuminate a whole new chapter of the loans saga.

It is worth remembering the public knew nothing of this at the time. Deputy opposition leader Phillip Lynch got wind of it in late December. His first inquiry to Treasury about the loans affair shows up in the tail end of the documents. He went on to pursue the affair relentlessly, at times aided by a young backbencher named John Howard.
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