just imagine labor winning, page-22

it seems to me the Aussie economy has a lot of problems which really haven't been addressed by the Libs...lack of infrastructure, massive private sector debt (in unproductive assets eg property), massive current account deficits at a time of commodity boom, no forward thinking with regard to R&D and education. Costello has run a fairly tight ship but he has middle Australia hooked on handouts and the public sector is bigger than ever, sure he runs deficits but this is really insignificant when you look at private sector debt.

I really think a great opportunity has been missed the past few years to set Australia up for the future. We need to look beyond just digging up resources and shipping them and buying them back as value added imports.

As for interest rates the govt can claim a small amount of credit for its surpluses but the bulk is world markets, interest rates are fairly low around the developed world.