australia faces a decade of debt, page-61

loric, simply add compound interest over 13 years and see what figure you come up with.

Howard as Treasurer was handed a surplus, and he subsequently handed over a debt.

The debt was handed back to Howard with interest, and Labor added their own debt which was also handed over to Howard.




darryle, try not mixing gross and net. Howard left a net surplus and a gross debt. The current net debt is around $150b and the current gross debt is around $278b.

If your going to use the $278b gross figure to compare with Howard, then you need to use Howard's gross debt figure, not his net figure. Compare net with net and gross with gross.

If you are claiming Howard left a surplus (net figure) then you need to compare it with the current net figure ($150b).


I have no issue with Labor's debt up until 2011-12 where I believe there was a problem, (the $60b increase in debt in 2011-12 was extremely excessive).


The next government (Abbott?) can be forgiven for any budget blowout only to the amount of servicing the debt, (net figure around $6b).

Any blowout of the budget over and above the servicing costs of the debt will be a reflection of next governments own performance.