Labor are addicted to debt

Labor are addicted to debt

When it comes to Labor’s economic management not much has really changed. Despite inheriting a $20 billion surplus and zero net debt, Labor is delivering:

  • $82.4 billion of net debt in 2010-11 – $3,600 per person
  • $4.6 billion of interest paid on net debt in 2010-11 – that’s $12.6 million a day or $203 for every Australian (and as the Net Interest Payments graph below shows, it will get worse)
  • A Budget deficit of $49.4 billion in 2010-11
  • To fund its reckless and wasteful spending, Labor needs to borrow more than $135 million every day.

Labor’s reckless spending is having a serious impact on business, jobs and the economy and is sending ordinary Australians to the wall

The graphs below dramatically highlights just how badly Australia’s debt has spiralled out of control under Labor.

Do you have your own story of Labor's waste, inefficiency and mismanagement of taxpayer's money? Hold them to account and tell us on the Tip-Off page.

About Labor Waste

LaborWaste.com.au is dedicated to highlighting examples of Labor Government waste, inefficiency and mismanagement to the public and to holding the Gillard Labor Government accountable for how it spends taxpayers money. Other posts by

  • guest

    It’s absolutely incredible how GFC notwithstanding, Labor’s old spend and tax form returns straight away.

  • DC

    Wow! So much for Labor’s 2007 pledge to be ‘conservative’ economic managers. Another Labor lie.

  • Scott

    interesting… just compare the (estimated) slow repayment rate of Gillard to the fast one of Howard. More to the point, we all know that Gillard / Swan will NEVER put the budget back into surplus – just isn’t in their DNA! They spend like drunken sailors.

    • Gen

      That’s being unkind to drunken sailors. At least they spend their own money! :)

  • Bert

    This mob is crazier than a box of frogs. Ordinary families have to be careful with their money, so why shouldn’t the government?

  • http://twitter.com/Twit_Conway Twit Conway

    Unlike Kevin Rudd, who promised us that he as an ‘economic conservative’, that’s not a mantle – to my knowledge – that Julia Gillard has ever claimed for herself and probably the only promise she hasn’t broken yet!

  • http://twitter.com/andreC27 Andre

    I hope this site was built with party donations and not tax-payer’s money.

    • Geoffrey

      well it’s a bit hard to build a site like this when labor is in power isn’t it?! what a stupid question.

  • http://twitter.com/Damo1642 Damien

    Waste! $118 million gun buyback scheme

    • Geoffrey

      Considering that the Howard Government overturned a near 100 billion dollar debt, your petty 118 million is pretty insignificant. And it wasn’t wasted, social safety and security was boosted and gun owners were re-imbursed. You’re an idiot.

      • http://twitter.com/Damo1642 Damien

        Did not remove any illegal firearms and us legitimate shooters just used the money to buy new guns. Zero impact = waste.

  • Richard

    Interesting assumption seems to be at play here: all debt is ‘bad’ debt. Turns out that actually sometimes we’re in debt for very good reasons; and anyway, we’re not in that much debt at all, as a percentage of GNI. So it’s a moot point. All this focus on budget deficits and surpluses just exposes a limited, flawed understanding of economics.

    Pretty graphics though.

    • Geoffrey

      Hi Richard, Can you please explain then how come our debts continually grow when Labor are in power, and diminish when Liberals are in power?

      Is it pure coincidence that debt is acceptible every time labor gains power?

      THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS RECKLESS WASTE!

      • http://twitter.com/Damo1642 Damien

        It cost a lot of money to fix the mistake the Liberals make when they are in power.

        • John

          Have you been dropped on your head?

          • Anonymous

            Hi Geoffrey!

            “Is it pure coincidence that debt is acceptible every time labor gains power?”

            From a summary on the hawke/keating government:

            “Rather than immediately initiating extensive reform programmes, Hawke announced that Fraser’s pre-election concealment of the budget deficit meant that many of Labor’s election commitments would have to be deferred.[1]”

            The question is, if you have trouble looking at figures that go back beyond a decade, were you dropped on your head or do you just appear mentally retarded?

            Do some basic research you fucktard.

            :-)

    • Andy

      Richard, it is your understanding of economics that is limited. Although debt can help a business grow because it can increase returns, government debt has no returns. It is just money borrowed and wasted. Thats not to say infrastructure projects are bad, but funding them by debt is, because 1) The choice of infrastructure project is often a silly idea that benefits only a few, but we all have to pay for. 2) The debt has to be paid back WITH interest. So money in the future must be used to pay the debt, which means it cant be used for something else in the future, like reconstruction from a disaster. And 3) if the infrastructure was actually profitable, then private enterprise would build it with their money – such as toll roads, and Optus mobile internet and Origin Enery wind power plants. The fact is, the economy will be better off if we all keep our money and spend it on what we want, rather than pay extra tax to pay back debt for a project that some bureaucrat thought was a good idea to waste $billions on now.

    • Andy

      Oops, I forgot the obvious point why debt is bad. Its the reason you dont go out and get a new credit card every week and max it out – you have to service the debt. For a government, there are 2 types of spending, recurring expenses for essential services, and one-off spending on big projects. The government has 2 sources of income; taxation and borrowings. If they get into debt on projects, then affording the cost of essential services PLUS the interset payments on the debt becomes difficult from taxation alone, especially when the tax take fluctuates and interset rates rise. If there is not enough tax revenue, the only way to fund essential services is by borrowing more. Its a never ending debt spiral, see greece, spain, UK, USA, Japan, Portugal, UIreland, Zimbabwe… the list goes on. Obviously its much smarter to run large surpluses so plenty of funding is available to run essential services when times are tough. Right now Wayne Swan has to do massive “tough” budget cuts, do you think the massive debt hole has nothing to do with it? I’d like to hear why you think not all debt is bad?

  • http://claimid.com/rimian rimian

    I don’t dispute labor is wasting money but this article makes no mention of the global financial crisis or any comparisons between Australia’s debt and the rest of the world.

    If you’re going to talk about national debt, you have to give it the context of the GFC for your argument to be credible.

    The USA’s dept as of March 2011 was $14.21 trillion. That’s over $46 000 debt per person. Our debt of $3500 per person is trivial in comparison.

    • Andy

      Here’s the context for the GFC: Firstly, Australia had the safest banking regulations in the world, our currency declined massivley, we benefitted from a $500billion Chinese stimulus, and we had a $20billion surplus. During the GFC, Labor just copied other countries and piled on debt for the sake of “stimulus”. And Australia had no recession. Those are facts. But do you think a debt funded stimulus saved us from a recession, when it didn’t work anywhere else? – And now we have lots of new taxes and not enough money to clean up after natural disasters. Maybe some more debt would help?

    • blair

      And I don’t believe that $14.21 trillion was racked up entirely within the past 3 years. In fact, in 2008 it was approx $9.6 trillion, and they had to borrow to bail out a number of banks. Australia had no such obligation.

      Now it’s also true that we still do have a relatively low public debt:GDP ratio, however the USA’s public debt:GDP ratio was 69% back in 2008, as compared to 70% currently.

      • http://claimid.com/rimian rimian

        US Dept is currently 97% of GDP. It is correct to say that our dept was acquired when the Labor party was in power but the “Labor are addicted to debt” argument here fails to take into account the biggest financial crisis since The Great Depression. To be fair, you have to ask yourself: Would the liberals have managed the GCF without acquiring debt when the rest of the world couldn’t? You’d also have to look at our economy in the current global context. In the UK there are riots over tax cuts, Japan, Greece, Italy and Singapore all have debt above 100% GDP (according to wikipedia). Australia’s debt is a low 22% of GDP. Most households are mortgaged much higher than that.

        The Labor party is a bunch of Keystone cops. They’ve failed spectacularly since KRudd formed a government. Labor party supporters are leaving the party in mass (myself included). All the Libs need to do is get together some constructive policy and a decent leader. But you’ve got Tony Abbott and a bunch of whinging climate change skeptics who come up with “Labor are addicted to debt” bollocks. Your arguments don’t stack up and your leader is a narrow minded, homophobic, sexist caveman who is “confronted” by burqas and homosexuality while parading around in his speedos. The Libs even went to the polls with “Stop the Boats”. Your former leader, Malcolm Fraser resigned in disgust.

        Why don’t the Libs get their shit together and put forward something constructive? You’re got two competent front benchers (Turnbull and Hockey) who could deliver a solid, effective opposition and probably a hand full of others with some credibility. Stop whinging and get on with it.

  • Gordon

    Where’s all the data before 1983-84? If you want to be honest about all this, you need to show the Fraser/Howard record

  • http://twitter.com/Damo1642 Damien

    Waste! $1.2 billion per year for the Afghanistan war.

    • Tam

      I would like to see how you would fare if your ‘rights’ such as freedom of speech were taken away from you – would you think it was such as waste of money then? I doubt it!

      • http://twitter.com/Damo1642 Damien

        I’m constantly amazed how little Australians know about there own country. The Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech.

        I think you will find after 10 years nothing has changed in Afghanistan, except progress on the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is now moving along quicker.

  • suellen

    LABOR GOVT’S DON’T NOW HOW TO MANAGE MONEY .NEVER HAVE DONE NEVER WILL DO.. HOW MANY BUSINESS MEN IN THE LABOR GOVT.. THEY ARE ALL UNIONISTS USED TO TAKING FROM THEIR EMPLOYER.. SOME UNI EDUCATED NO ONES WITHOUT EXPERIENCE IN THE REAL WORLD AND GOD KNOWS WHO ELSE THAT I CAN THINK OF WHO COULD MAKE ANY REAL DIFFERENCE TO OUR WORLD..THIS COUNTRY IS GOING DOWN HILL FAST AND WHO EVER VOTED GREEN/INDEPENDENT/LABOR WILL PAY THE PRICE.

  • Goncalo

    i believe we should all just cut to the crap and become a republic

  • Arnieishuge

    Some Australians were dumb enough to vote in Mr Dudd with all his promises to fix the world and make petrol and food plummet in prices for all Australians.How dumb are we,we really are on our way out as a nation,we are going down hill fast,and I cant stand these dumb shits who just brush people like myself away as depressed people like everything can only get brighter,Some people really deserve whats coming,because they wont escape no matter how happy and great they think they are,because as a nation we are on our way,and on many fronts.OPEN BORDERS,FORIEGN OWNERSHIP OF AGRICULTURAL LAND( SOMETHING MR DUDD AND MS GILLARD HAVE BROUGHT ON IN CHANGING THE POLICY OF FORIEGN PURCHASES OF AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL LAND) FORIEGN DEBT,GOVERNMENT DEBT,THE LIST GOES ON!!!

  • John

    Damien you are an idiot

  • Anton

    This current Labor Government is truly the worst Government in Australia’s history. It is akin to the Loonies running the asylum.
    Julia Gillard will sell her soul to stay in power and has proved time and time again she is a compulsive liar.
    She is nothing but a puppet on a string being controlled by the mentally unstable Greens and a few power hungry Independent traitors.
    God help us all.
    We need an election now. Let the PEOPLE decide if they want a Carbon tax!. Enough is enough.