buzzanddidj wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 2:50am:



The debt inherited by Wayne Swan stood at 9.7% of GDP .

In his six years of not once delivering a surplus, he has increased the debt of Australia by over 330%.

Just worth pointing out he also has no formal education in finance and economics and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Probably goes to explain why he can't challenge Treasurys hilarious forecasts?

Either way, he's done a shite job.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 9:17am:



While the wonderfull USA where everything is teriffic and they give you petrol for free has a debt to GDP ration of 105%.

Just wonderfull performance there hey?

Aussie wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 9:21am:


Debt to GDP is different from government debt.

If you look at Andrei's full story he will tell you that Labor inherited a Debt to GDP of 9. something.

You may recall that the conservatives claimed to have paid off the debt. Australias debt to GDP was never zero.

The other conservatives want him to go away with this line as it does not really support the liberals view overall and in fact goes to display one of their real failures and broken promises.

KJT1981 wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 9:32am:



Andrei does - the guy making the claim and it's his hypocricy.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 9:37am:


Every time you see an advantage you look to the good old USA.

I believe that what you have stated is correct if a bit misleading to some who do not understand the difference between debt to GDP and the Australian government debt numbers most frequently quoted which is about 11% of GDP.

Anyway I see in the bigger picture with the Liberals bringing a further 100 Billion of unfunded spending to the table with a Hockey Abbott economic team as a recipe for a much worse position with no real hope of improvement.

On the other hand Labor have been progressively cutting back budget after budget and making real ground in the right direction in a really tough situation.

Things could  have clearly got a lot worse - just look at the rest of the world, the conservatives economic team look our best chance to get there too.

Socrates wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 9:53am:


Peter Costello as Treasurer left the country in a very good position to weather the storm.

They in fact left the economy geared to fail in anything less than an ideal well above average world economic environment.

Rudd, Gillard and Swan basically wasted the surplus

I think you have used the wrong term. The surplus is the yearly budget position - its not government savings ?

The surplus was at about 0.8% of GDP not spent on a yearly basis. The GFC was a downturn of over 3% of GDP. Neither Labor or the Liberals could have done anything about this the simple math is 3 - 0.8 = -2.2

Nothing to do with anyone doing anything - instant deficit. Basically when you have spending locked in and income goes away you end up in debt.

All the reliable and reasonable economic analysis shows that the Liberals would have faired a lot worse.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on May 19^th, 2013 at 10:14am:


Giving money to people less likely to spend it was going to do nothing to help the economy.

I got nothing and had I been given the payment it would have likely been invested or left in the account for a long time.

Well in my case probably not if it was just money that would have been its fate but in this type of case I would have gone out of my way to spend it appropriately, most wouldn't though.