kippa - your comments appear to be from Steve Koukoulas. Also if I'm not mistaken you and he like to use the term "asset sales" as a pejorative term. Nothing illegitimate about it.
Costello recently pointed out that the Qld Gov can only go so far in reducing its debt through measures other than asset sales, but their problem is so deep that asset sales are inevitable - in his opinion.
This from Judith Sloan in a debate with Koukoulas which post dates your quoted article.
EMMA ALBERICI: Why should the Australian public feel nervous about government debt Judith Sloan?
JUDITH SLOAN: I think they do. I think it is right that they do. I’m sure Stephen will make the point by international standards the Australian Government debt is very low. That’s true. Do we really want to be in the basket case positions of a lot of those European countries. I think what probably unnerves them the most is the rate of change. When the Labor Government came to power there was actually not any debt. There was a negative four per cent if you see my point. There’s actually been a change of 14 percentage points into debt and that’s actually a very rapid movement. So yes, by international standards our debt is low, but in terms of rate of change, we’ve got the gold medal.
