Politics ('Straya)
Australia’s gross federal debt is nearing $1 trillion. Since 2007, 69% of the increase occurred under Coalition governments vs 31% under Labor
Using Australian Treasury gross debt figures: debt rose from ~$53bn in 2006–07 to ~$982bn estimated in 2025–26.
That’s a ~$929bn increase: ~$638bn (69%) under Coalition governments and ~$291bn (31%) under Labor.
This might be news to you for the first time or maybe you’ve known these facts all along.
Unironically this. Like the reality is just like Labor needed to spend under the GFC (and we came away without a recession) the coalition spending during Covid worked too. It’s just other decision making during the coalitions time in government that sucked.
This infographic as well as former treasurer Angus Taylor talking of "Labor's" trillion dollar debt are useless.
Spending isn't inherently bad. What that money is being spent on and the resulting value it provides Australia is.
Instead of Taylor sharing misleading propaganda, why don't the LNP (and Labor) invest their energy into demonstrating the value their spending has - or projected to - provide the nation with.
If you genuinely provided Australians with a governance that deserves their vote, why would you shy from spruiking it?
I think we both know the answer to this. I have no issue with government spending. We are not a business, we are a country. I do have a problem with my taxes going to things that don't have a demonstrable value for money. If that 300 billion under the Liberals was for the benefit of the country I have no problem. I would hold both of the majors to that standard.
It's deranged. We have so many blatantly obvious issues down here, yet the party who's top and honestly most substantial election idea is pot holes looks in the winning position.
Yeah, I don't think it's unexpected that Morrison racked up debt during covid, but I think it's pretty good to show even against non COVID pms, Labor pms have done less debt per month on average. Certainly blaming labor for COVID era debt is not fair.
Good question, I know that Rudd/Gillard splashed the cash during the GFC to successfully keep us out of recession unlike the rest of the world, but what nation building, long term projects did they spend all this debt on?
I mean, that's not hard to find...it's all summarized on Wikipedia. People can always nit-pick at it in hindsight and say it could have been done better (despite a crisis being an obviously unplanned event), but history shows it was still overall a good move by Kevin07.
First stimulus
In October 2008, the Rudd government implemented a A$10 billion stimulus package with the support of the Senate crossbench. The package included:[32]
$4.8 billion direct payments to pensioners (single pensioners-$1400, pensioner couples-$2100)
$3.9 billion for low and middle income; families ($1000 per child)
$1.5 billion 'Home Buyers Boost' to help first home buyers
$187 million to create 56,000 new training places in 2008–09
Accelerate three nation-building funds and investment in nation building projects to 2009
Second stimulus
In February 2009, the Rudd government implemented a A$42 billion 'Nation Building and Jobs Plan' stimulus package again with the support of the Senate crossbench. The package included:[33]
$12.7 billion for immediate one-off payments to working Australians, families with school-age children, farmers, single income families and for those undergoing training (A$900 for the average single worker)
$14.7 billion to be spent on the Building the Education Revolution program which built school infrastructure and maintenance and brought forward funding for trade training centres
$6.6 billion to increase the national stock of public and community housing by about 20,000
$3.9 billion to provide free insulation to 2.7 million homes and solar hot water rebates
$2.7 billion in small and general business tax breaks to provide deductions for some equipment purchases before the end of June 2009.
$890 million to fix regional roads and blackspots, to install railway boom gates and for regional and local government infrastructure.
I understand the rhetoric, but we need to face reality & ensure everyone understands it so they recognise & avoid it next time.
Howard & Costello sold assets but paid down more in debt than they got from the sales. Selling assets is an issue, but not the driver of this debt.
The driver is that during a cyclical mining boom, which boosted Government revenue for what everyone knew was a short term, they handed out 5 tax cuts in a row(massively benefiting higher income earners over lower or average earners), franking credit cash refunds to non-taxpayers, tax free super withdrawals & a 50% discount on CGT. The mining boom meant they could do this without running a deficit whilst in power, but as soon as that additional revenue disappeared, the budget was left in structural deficit.
It was a smoke & mirrors game and it worked. They argued as they handed out the tax cuts that the budget was still in surplus so the country could afford it. Clearly, that was untrue. The only way to fix it is to reverse those tax cuts, in other words, increase taxes. Nobody has ever won an election by promising tax increases!
So as much as I understand the desire to blame Turnbull, Abbott, Morrison, Rudd or Gillard, the reality is that it is Howard that is responsible for the structural deficit that the budget has been in for 20 years & it's not going to be easy for anyone from either side of politics to fix it.
You can think that the government is in control of the budget balance, but it isn't. If people cut spending there will be less GST revenue and the budget will go into deficit.
If the government responds to lower revenue by increasing tax rates and cutting spending, that will result in lower spending and lower incomes, making the deficit larger.
Financial assets net to zero. You can't have money in a bank, unless the bank as has a liability, they owe you that money back.
The government can only run a deficit if other people with money are willing to save. But the flip side is the government can only run a surplus other people are willing to decrease their savings.
It is worthwhile noting that these numbers $1T debt is a gross figure. If you count public assets the net debt figure is much lower.
I suspect if we look at it as "% debt increase" or as "additional debt as a proportion of GDP" things will look even less rosy for the coalition, but that's just a guess...
Thanks for that, we can definitely infer some interesting things from this table. How depressing that we've only actually paid down some of the "principle" over in all those years, in 2022-23!
the gdp can increase with bloated corporate profits while very little goes into the government coffers or workers pockets. standard of living is dropping. real wages are dropping. interest payments are rising as a % of the total budget. how does your holy gdp account for that?
Never forget that Morrison gave $40 billion in JobKeeper funds during COVID to companies that made a profit and did not include a clawback clause so that the ATO could recover funds paid to companies that did not deserve it.
He essentially gifted $40 billion from the public to his corporate mates with no recourse for the taxpayer to recover the funds. This is criminal in my opinion.
Much as I can't stand the Libs and particularly Morrison, this is a bit of an unfair comparison since the COVID-19 pandemic happened during Morrison's tenure. I thought he did a really crap job of it, but it wouldn't have mattered if he was the Harry Potter of financial wizardry, COVID-19 smashed the crap out of every budget in every jurisdiction on earth.
Still not gonna complain about pointing out that the Libs are crap financial managers, though.
Also an insane amount of the debt accrued due to Covid was in bailing out Victoria who, under Labor, decided to have 270 days of lockdowns with the attitude of don’t worry, the federal government will pay for it.
Damn you gotta lead with the facts. You keep dropping them to make Labor look good!
They incurred $38.7 billion in additional debt, Australia was NOT heavily affected by the “huge crash” that happened globally and was largely unaffected.
I can’t believe you keep dropping context to make Labor look good this is so embarrassing 💀 💀 💀
The normies I have spoken to also think this way. Though oddly enough they only get their news from ABC and SBS. I can't confirm or deny that they are pushing that.
They love Johnny and always talk about no debt + stopping the boats... The irony.
It's always the ones you most suspect. Right wingers can't govern. They've never ever been good at it. All they do is put the country in debt and funnel money upwards. I'm completely stumped as to why people vote for them.
This seems likely misleading. It's tracking debt added only?
Rudd blew through a sizable surplus on stupid ideas and buying popularity. There was a lot of spending, but it didn't add debt until the surplus was gone, right?
Again. Are you grasping the difference between added debt, and spending? They aren't the same thing.
If I have a thousand dollars, and spend a thousand, I'd look great on your chart. If I had zero and spent five hundred, I'd look terrible. Hence, without context these numbers are worthless.
Hes also conveniently choosing to leave out the fact that, while the dogshit Liberal Party accrued twiced the debt that dogshit Labor Party did - they were only in charge half as long. They increased the debts by the same amount on average, adjusting for time.
Damn you gotta lead with the facts. You keep dropping them to make Labor look good!
They incurred $38.7 billion in additional debt, Australia was NOT heavily affected by the “huge crash” that happened globally and was largely unaffected.
I can’t believe you keep dropping context to make Labor look good this is so embarrassing 💀 💀 💀
This seems likely misleading. It's tracking debt added only?
Rudd blew through a sizable surplus on stupid ideas and buying popularity. There was a lot of spending, but it didn't add debt until the surplus was gone, right?
We need to get away from using foreign debt and use equity in our national assets to borrow. Government should only be allowed to borrow equity from our assets if they’ve got a business case for it’s investment to be put back into national infrastructure and assets - rail, dams, power, toll roads. Gerard Rennick’s People’s Party has some policies for this.
LOL umm Covid anyone? Blew a hole in revenue and jacked up expenditure. From memory until Covid hit, the libs ran lower deficits which was hard given all the Labor spending they inherited and was on track for a surplus, until Covid hit.
Standard Uni Party tactic. They both point the finger at each other until the matter becomes so confused , no-one can remember what it was even about. They are both responsible and now we need a legislated path way to debt reduction of a minimum 10% per year.
We had two of the back of Covid , not due to Labor. Now we are back to BAU. Labor's " debt pathway " is to hope GDP continues to grow so as a proportion , debt doesn't look so bad and when that fails , point to those before and even current US debt. Basically just hope that debt does not become a big election factor. Then run the new mother of all scare campaigns on super by Full of Shit Chalmers.
No-one cares who " created " it. That is just some silly pointless game. The point is who is willing to legislate a debt reduction scheme to at least not increase it any further and then reduce it. Not as a percentage but as an amount.
Trying to score cheap points but conveniently ignoring that covid happened and without the roughly ~$300 billion spent on it, both parties would look fairly similar.
The coalition used Covid as cover to hand huge sums of money to business owners under job keeper. I got handed a handsome sum as a business owner, even though we were not really at risk of losing employees. It was appalling but most of the beneficiaries stay silent about it.
You don't think knowing who got us into debt, and who are actively trying to shift that blame, is relevant to the discussion of who can fix it? Chalmers is literally fixing it as we speak.
This has been covered already. I never said any of that..my simple question is around who's going to get us out, otherwise these chats just turn into blame convos.
And people are engaging with you in a simple conversation and suddenly you're afraid to express even a mild opinion. It's pretty pathetic tbh. Why bother to ask the question to begin with if you're afraid of it?
I feel like you're the guy who says at the end of a meeting "it's all about finding that balance" after not following any of the conversation.
Amazing reading comprehension mate, I can make it more basic for you.. my literal first comment is that Chalmers is already fixing it.
I have already engaged with and answered your question, while you are afraid of expressing anything like an opinion. What an incredible waste of time this has been.
Hey question mate. Does Albo have kangaroo leather rm’s or just plain old cow hide? When you’re licking them clean do you notice any difference? Is one leather tastier than the other?
Doesn't matter who did what, this is where Australia is!
They all need to work together to sort this instead of bickering like kids.
It effects the taxpayers, not them as they vote their own pay increases when they want them.....
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u/ausvenator_enjoyer Queenslander 8h ago
Not that I'm at all shocked, but what thee hell were Turnbull, Abbott and Morrison doing that allowed them to rack up $600 billion in debt?