Quotes of the Week

“These days, it's not just leftie troublemakers who doubt that benefits going direct to big business will trickle down to the rest of us, it's every punter in the street.”  [Economics Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, Ross Gittins, 24 July 2017]

“Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump is saddled with a stalled agenda, a West Wing that resembles a viper’s nest, a pile of investigations and a Republican Party that is starting to break away.”  [Journalists Julie Pace and Jonathan Lemire writing in The Washington Post, 29 July 2017]

“This White House is broken, perhaps beyond repair. It can’t do anything right. It can’t issue executive orders that are enforceable. It can’t pass legislation. It can’t prioritize the president’s agenda. It can’t get anybody on the same page. In a normal White House, all of those things flow from an empowered White House chief of staff who can execute the president’s agenda and most importantly tell him what he does not want to hear. And none of that is happening.”  [Author Chris Whipple quoted in The Washington Post, 31 July 2017]

“Yeah. He’s like a conveyor belt for bad overseas ideas.” [Journalist Richard Chirgwin tweeting about Australian Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull on 2 August 2017]

“By August 2 2017, we will have used more from Nature than our planet can renew in the whole year…..This means that in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb in a year, we caught more fish, felled more trees, harvested more, and consumed more water than the Earth was able to produce in the same period.” [World Wildlife Fund quoted in the Independent on 2 August 2017]

Trumponomics and media in the United States of Dystopia

"President Trump spoke with @TheEconomist about Trumponomics and every answer is bananas" 
[Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Justin Wolfers on Twitter, 11 May 2017]

Who thought that Anthony John Abbott when he was Australian prime minister was the most ill-intentioned, ignorant  and embarrassing leader of a nation to have ever existed to date in the developed world during the 21st century?

Well he now pales in comparison with Donald John Trump (pictured above).

Excerpts from the transcript of The Economist interview with the U.S. President on 4 May 2017:

Another part of your overall plan, the tax reform plan. Is it OK if that tax plan increases the deficit? Ronald Reagan’s tax reform didn’t.
[President Trump] Well, it actually did. But, but it’s called priming the pump. You know, if you don’t do that, you’re never going to bring your taxes down. Now, if we get the health-care [bill through Congress], this is why, you know a lot of people said, “Why isn’t he going with taxes first, that’s his wheelhouse?” Well, hey look, I convinced many people over the last two weeks, believe me, many Congressmen, to go with it. And they’re great people, but one of the great things about getting health care is that we will be saving, I mean anywhere from $400bn to $900bn.

…………

That all goes into tax reduction. Tremendous savings.

But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll… you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

Yes.
We have to prime the pump.

It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?

Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just… I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

It’s…
Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.

………

So you would have a bigger deficit, a stimulus, to prime the pump that would lead to faster growth?
So I happen to think that 3% is low. But you can’t do it if your companies are leaving the country because taxes are too high. Now, I’m going to do something there too. If our companies leave the country, number one they’re leaving for numerous reasons but one of the big reasons is the taxes are so high. When they leave—go back to trade for a second, when they leave the country, go to a certain country wherever it may be, and they fire all their workers in the United States and on the assumption they build cars or air conditioners or whatever they’re building, and they open a plant someplace else and then they send the air conditioner or the car into our country with no tax, that’s not going to happen anymore. They’re going to have a very large tax to pay, in the vicinity of 35%.

Now when you do that, number one they're not leaving the country anyway. So we’re not leaving. I don’t know if you saw what’s happening. Ford has announced massive expansions in the United States. General Motors cancelled a big plant in Mexico and a big plant in Europe. They’re all cancelling plans because I told them, I said… I get along with them great. But I said, “Look, we don’t mind if you leave the country. You can build all you want out of country, I hope you enjoy your plant. But when you build your car, you’re going to have a 35% tax when you bring it back in. And if your numbers work, we wish you well. But that’s what you’re going to have. You’re going to have a 35% tax.”

So I mean, I have, it has, I haven’t been given massive credit for it yet, but I have been given some because I just see polls out in Michigan and different places, that really are affected by this, have been unbelievable, you know, much bigger than election day. But that’s not a tax increase, that’s no tax. In other words, all you have to do is don’t leave and you won’t have a… but we’re bringing our taxes down so low that you won’t even need the barrier because the taxes are so low, that people are going to stay.

The other thing, just in case we… I believe it could be anywhere from $4trn to $5trn outside, you know don’t forget we’ve been talking about $2.5trn for four years now. I’ve been using $2.5trn, the same number we’ve all been using for years. Well, you know, it grows. I think it… I wouldn’t be surprised if it was $5trn but, you know, we’re close. We’re letting that money come back in. And that has two barriers which you have to watch. It’s got a barrier of the tax, which we will take care of. We’re going to make it 10%. Now it’s 35%...

Sorry, 10%? The repatriation taxes?
The repatriation. Inversion. The corporate inversions, which is a disaster, with the companies leaving. But they want to bring back their money. Number one, the tax is too high but the other thing that’s too high is the bureaucracy.

……….

I have a friend who said even if you wanted to bring it back in you can’t because you have to go through so many papers, so many documents, so many…

You have to do… Steve, they told me you’ve got to sign books and books of stuff, you pay millions of dollars in legal fees and they almost don’t allow you to bring it back in.

Can I ask you a question about the politics of tax?
It should be like one page.

Excerpts from the transcript of a Time interview with President Trump, published 11 May 2017:

For instance I don’t watch CNN. I don’t watch MSNBC. Scarborough used to treat me great. But because I don’t do interviews and stuff and want to … He went the other way. Which is fine. He’s got some problems. But I don’t watch the show anymore. It drives him crazy. I don’t watch the show.

I do watch Fox in the morning, and their ratings have gone through the roof because everyone knows I’m watching Fox. But they’re pleasant. And if I do something wrong they report on it. I don’t mean they – if I do something wrong. But it’s really, honestly it’s the most accurate.

CNN in the morning, Chris Cuomo, he’s sitting there like a chained lunatic. He’s like a boiler ready to explode, the level of hatred. And the entire, you know the entire CNN platform is that way. This Don Lemon who’s perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting, Don Lemon at night it’s like – sometimes they’ll have a guest who by mistake will say something good. And they’ll start screaming, we’re going to commercial. They cut him off. Remember?

I’ve seen things where by mistake somebody they bring in a guest and it turns out to be a positive. And they go, I mean they get just killed. The level of hatred. And poor Jeffrey Lord. I love Jeffrey Lord. But sometimes he’s sitting there with eight unknown killers that nobody ever heard of. And CNN actually is not doing nearly as well as others. They’re all doing well because of me. But it’s not doing as well as others that are doing better actually. But Fox treats me very fairly. MSNBC is ridiculous. It’s just bad.

It’s an ability I never thought I’d have. I never thought I’d have the ability to say, they’re doing a big story on me on CNN and I won’t watch it. And it’s amazing, it doesn’t matter. But it really, the equilibrium is much better. As far as newspapers and things, I glance at them. They’re really dishonest. I mean they’re really dishonest……

You see a no-talent guy like Colbert. There’s nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy. And you have kids watching. And it only builds up my base. It only helps me, people like him. The guy was dying. By the way they were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better. But his show was dying. I’ve done his show. … But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.

Make no mistake - Trump is placing all national economies in jeopardy once more

In the midst of The Great Depression (a decade long severe global economic downturn triggered by the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash) the U.S. Government enacted the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act which tightened banking and financial sector regulations.

At the urging of the same financial and banking sector in 1999 a bipartisan agreement saw the introduction of the Financial Services Modernization Act which repealed large parts of the Glass-Stegall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act.

In the wake of another crisis generated by the American sub-prime mortgage melt-down, aptly titled The Global Financial Crisis, the U.S. Government in July 2010 enacted the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to reimpose stricter regulations.

Now we hear that Donald Trump is moving to roll back the Dodd-Frank reforms. In particular the Volker Rule against banks using depositor funds for speculative bets on their own account and from acquiring or retaining ownership interests in, sponsoring, or having certain relationships with a hedge fund or private equity fund - practices thought to have exacerbated The Global Financial Crisis.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 February 2017:

US President Donald Trump moved to chisel away at the Obama administration's legacy on financial reform, announcing a series of steps to revisit the rules enacted after the 2008 financial crisis and setting the stage for a showdown with Democrats over the future of Wall Street regulation.

After a White House meeting with the executives, Mr Trump signed a directive calling for his administration to identify potential changes to provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, crafted by the Obama administration and passed by Congress in response to the 2008 meltdown….

Trump states we expect to be cutting a lot from Dodd-Frank because I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses, and they can't borrow money. They can't get money from the banks — they just can't get any money because the banks won't let them borrow because of rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank despite evidence that the banking sector is making a considerable number of commercial and industrial loans.

Most Australian families have memories of The Great Depression which hit this country hard and all will be able to recall the ripple effects from The Global Financial Crisis, so it is not unreasonable to fear that what this erratic and ignorant American president does in relation to U.S. banking and financial sector legislation has the potential to send the world spinning into yet another American-generated global economic crisis.

Forewarned is forearmed and this time around everyone would be wise to closely follow reputable newspapers and economic commentators to see which way the wind blows as the United States once more enters dangerous waters.

Counting the coins as we wait for the 45th Parliament to commence

Before Malcolm Turnbull (as prime minister of a government in the third and final year of its first term in office) called a double dissolution election, the last Dept. of Finance Australian Government General Government Sector Monthly Financial Statement due was for May 2016 and, this revealed an underlying cash balance for the 2015-16 financial year to 31 May 2016 which was in deficit to the tune of $34,860 million.

With Income, Expenses & Debt Year to Date May 2016 coming in at:

total government revenue - $360,209 million of which $340,866 million was taxation revenue

total expenses - $388,061 million leaving a shortfall of $27,852 million

public debt interest - $14,101 million

net government debt - $284,657 million.

The June figures are yet to be published and it will be a case of track the Dept. of Finance website for the next three years as the Liberal-Nationals Coalition fails yet again to reign in its own discretionary spending.

Meanwhile Prime Minister-elect Turnbull - in an election so close that by 18 July 2016 only 13 of 150 House of Representatives seats have been officially declared - held an evening of champagne and canapés with a who’s who of Liberal and National MPs and senators at The Lodge in Canberra on 17 July.

The food included Pialligo ­Estate’ smoked salmon on rye toasties with horseradish cream, Moroccan lamb rissoles with harissa yoghurt, vegetable samosa with mint relish, roast beef en croute with stilton cream and tomato chutney, Vietnamese prawns with chilli jam and chicken satays.

I sincerely hope that Mr. Turnbull personally paid for use of The Lodge that night and for all catering and security at this event, as he didn’t become the official tenant again until after the Governor-General swore him in on 19 July 2016.

Mr. Turnbull's reportedly in excess of $1 million donation to the Liberal election campaign may possibly have brought him government but it could never buy the allocation of taxpayer funds for his private victory party.

Statistics that Team Turnbull hope voters won't notice

The Guardian, 4 June 2016:

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released over the past few days shed a stark light on private sector business investment and company profit trends over the past few years. It shows that rather than being anti-business, investment and profits boomed under Labor, and rather than being pro-business, they have collapsed under the Coalition.

Here are the facts.

In the two and a half years since the 2013 election, company profits have fallen 11% to their lowest level since 2010. This has occurred with the global economy registering decent growth and interest rates at record lows. In the six years of Labor government to 2013, company profits rose 28% despite the global financial crisis which plunged the world economy into a deep recession.

On business investment, the credentials of both sides of politics are even more extreme. Since the September 2013 election, private sector capital expenditure has fallen a thumping 26% and the outlook for the next year is for a further fall of between 5% and 10%. The fall in business investment is set to be more severe than during the early 1990s recession.

Under the previous Labor government, business investment rose a robust 67% to reach a record high proportion of GDP. It seems the policy settings which included the carbon price and mining tax did nothing to discourage the private sector from going out and investing.

Labor being anti-business with its emphasis on better health and education, and the Coalition being pro-business with its planned tax cuts.

Don’t believe the journalist? Still convinced only conservatives understand business? Then check his facts at 5676.0 - Business Indicators, Australia, Mar 2016 – data from 1994 to 2016.

Action hero Scott Morrison of the Turnbull Coalition Team sends dispatch from Coalition Campaign Headquarters 2016 (CCHQ 2016)

This is what Labor’s Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen stated on 10 May 2016 as reported by SBS News:

The ritual election costings debate has begun with shadow treasurer Chris Bowen promising Labor will release four and 10-year costings of its policies.

But the bottom line won't be revealed until the latter part of the campaign, "after we've announced the last bulk of our policies", Mr Bowen told the National Press Club on Tuesday.

"That will enable us to say more about the trajectory back to budget balance," he said.

Labor would stick with the independent Parliamentary Budget Office for its costings, rather than submitting policies to Treasury, Mr Bowen said.

"They are well resourced, competent people and if there is a dispute between the Treasury and the Parliamentary Budget Office as to costings, that does not automatically mean that the PBO is in some way in error," he said.

Mr Bowen also said while Treasury was an arm of the government, its secretary was not a political play thing and he would work with the Abbott-appointed head John Fraser.

This is what Chris Bowen also clearly stated in 10 May 2016 media release:

Labor is the only party setting the economic agenda.

If elected, we will:

*Deliver an economic statement within three months of being elected to protect Australia’s AAA credit rating.

Implement our productivity-enhancing economic agenda, including our plan to deliver once-in-a-generation school reforms, lifting educational outcomes and boosting GDP.  

*Deliver our $10 billion infrastructure facility which will create approximately 26,000 jobs and add around an extra $7.5 billion to Australia’s GDP every year.

*Reform negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax, stimulating new housing construction and putting the great Australian dream back within reach of working and middle-class  

 Australians.

* Making record investments in the renewable energy sector preparing our economy for a less carbon-intensive world.

As for any possibility of a minority government after 2 July 2016, SBS World News Radio reported on 10 May 2016:

Voting preferences dominated discussion across all major parties.

It stemmed from Greens MP Adam Bandt raising the prospect of forming an alliance with a minority coalition or Labor government in the event of a hung parliament.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose party has ruled out governing with the support of the Greens, used the occasion to warn of a return to a past political scenario.

"Why would we run the risk of having another Labor-Greens independent government, another hung parliament, which is plainly in contemplation of the Labor party, it is plainly in the enthusiastic contemplation of the Greens, and we know what the price will be: people smugglers back in business, much higher taxes even than those already contemplated by Labor and a much higher carbon tax even than that already contemplated by Labor."

Bill Shorten, too, appeared quick to quash the idea.

"Every time you see a Green politician saying they are against the Liberals, then why are they making it easier for the Liberals to get elected in the suburbs and regions of Australia. Or, can I put it another way to Mr Bandt and the Greens, tell them they are dreaming. No deals with Labor about forming a coalition."

This was Treasurer Scott Morrison of the Turnbull Coalition Team in a media release sent from Coalition Campaign Headquarters 2016 (CCHQ 2016):

Image @latingle

As journalist Laura Tingle observed on 11 May; Is the government just a little panicky here?

As we approach the Abbott Government's second set of Budget Papers due in May 2015 - a timely reminder of how far we are going backwards

Sky News on 3 April 2015 telling Australia what social media commentators have known since December 2013:

In the year ended 30 June 2013 the then Labor Federal Government reported total revenue of $338.7 billion, total expenses of $381.4 billion (est. 25.1% of GDP) and a fiscal balance deficit of $28 billion. Net government debt and net interest payments on that debt stood at stood at 10 and 0.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) respectively.

The Abbott Coalition Government was sworn in on 18 September 2013.

In the month Tony Abbott took hold of the reins of government the Department of Finance listed Australia’s net debt at $174.5 billion and an underlying cash balance (deficit) of $22.9 billion projected to fall to $18 billion by 30 June 2014.

The Abbott Government reported total revenue of $374.6 billion, total expenses of $415.2 billion (est. 26.2% of GDP) and a fiscal balance deficit for the year ended 30 June 2014 of $42.2 billion. At that time net government debt stood at 12.5 per cent of GDP and net interest payments at 0.6 per cent.

In February 2015 and just on halfway through the Abbott Government’s term in office, the Department of Finance listed net debt at $254.9 billion and an underlying cash balance (deficit) of $40.4 billion projected to fall to $40.3 billion by 30 June 2015. At which time net government debt is expected to be 13.9 per cent of GDP and net interest payments at 0.7 per cent of GDP.

So why did budget deficit and public debt increase so dramatically in those first nine months and why is it barely decreasing to date?

Well, there have been signposts along the way and the most obvious place to start is with the borrowing spree that Treasurer Joe Hockey went on almost from Day One of the Abbott Government.

By 4 December 2013 (after less than 3 months in office) Abbott Government borrowings were averaging in excess of $203 million a day. At 30 June 2014 borrowings stood in excess of $351 billion and the 2014-15 budget papers predicted that borrowings will be 23.3% of GDP by 30 June 2015.

Then there was the $8.8 billion grant to the Reserve Bank in October 2013 and the loss of est. $2.9 billion over the 2015-16 and 2016-17 financial years due to the repeal of the Mineral Resources Rent Tax.

Add to this the cost of The War On Terror conducted Abbott-style, which is conservatively estimated to cost $400 million in this year alone for troops deployed in the Syria region, plus the $5.3 million a month cost of an ongoing and inevitably fruitless search for a long gone commercial aircraft.

Throw in the approximately $4.7 million spent on the prime ministerial fleet of bomb-proof cars (which will be stationed around the country for Abbott's convenience) and the est. $250 million reportedly being spent on a new VIP aircraft sometime this year primarily for the prime minister's use .

Factor in the cost of servicing political egos found in the Dept. of Finance lists of parliamentary entitlements paid and the additional expense of VIP flights for political elites.

Add the est. $2.4 billion in tariff revenue foregone due to international trade agreements signed since 2013, along with the est. $86 million spent on two royal commissions into 'pink batts' and trade unions.

Pour in the mix that $400 million plus reportedly spent on hosting the G20 Summit in 2014.

Then toss in a reported $1 billion in public service redundancy payouts expected to flow from the Abbott Government's 'restructuring' of government departments and downsizing of the public service between September 2013 to 2016-17.

Insert the increasing costs of immigration detention and the in excess of $2 billion in contracts awarded in early 2104 for the management of two overseas detention centres. This equates to these contracts costing over $420 million annually. The National Commission of Audit's February-March 2014 report states the projected detention costs for all centres over the forward estimates currently exceeds $10 billion.

Top it all off with the unfair 2014-15 federal budget, which for all the ideologically driven pain it intended to inflict was expected to only save $27 billion over a four-year period and which has now been effectively gutted by the Abbott Government is a desperate grab for some degree of popularity.

Combine all of the above with Prime Minister Abbott's recent conversion to a 'debt is good' philosophy and it is easy to see why government finances are mired in red ink. With the non-Treasury document being circulated by the Treasurer, the March 2015 Intergenerational Report Australia in 2055, predicting net government debt could be as high as 60 per cent of GDP in forty years' time.

Now Tony Abbott has abandoned his 'debt and deficit disaster' rhetoric he has decided that the real budgetary crisis is actually federal government spending. Spending is probably the slowest growing line item in all the aforementioned figures, nevertheless Abbott was quoted in The Australian on 2 April 2015 as stating;even with the changes that we’ve already made, we’re still heading for government spending at around 31 per cent of GDP".

If all this sounds a mite confusing, remember one of the features of budget predictions and economic outlooks produced by the Abbott Government to date is that rarely do all of the documents contain the same basic assumptions or numbers. Since September 2013 creative writing not reliable economic policy appears to be the order of the day.

Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey needs to come up with a better argument concerning the federal Goods and Services Tax

David Pope in the Canberra Times, 30 March 2015

Brisbane Times 30 March 2015:

Treasurer Joe Hockey says Australian consumers have changed their behaviour so much in recent years, through online shopping and choosing more GST-exempt goods, that they are putting pressure on the GST as a revenue-raiser.

Apparently Joe Hockey is upset that this consumption tax raised $47.4 billion in 2012-13, $50.7 billion in 2013-14 and, is expected to raise $53.7 billion this financial year, $57 billion in 2015-16, $60.4 billion in 2016-17 and another $63.8 in $2017-18.

That’s not good enough for our millionaire Liberal treasurer.

It appears he is rather perturbed that people are still buying GST-exempt basic fresh food, simple dairy products and unprocessed cooking ingredients in their local shops or purchasing online second-hand, handmade or other goods worth less than $1,000.

This is the rather weak excuse he is offering for encouraging the states to believe there should be more in the federal Goods & Services Tax kitty.

The GST is a regressive tax when applied to low income households and no amount of vague talk in the mainstream media about possible ‘compensation’ for pensioners will change that.

TRUST: no respite for Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott

Peter Martin, Economics Editor at The Age, blogging it like it is on 10 February 2015:

As Abbott brought forward the timing of the leadership vote on Sunday his supporter and finance minister Mathias Cormann told the ABC the economy was "heading in the right direction".

He wanted "to build on the achievements we made in 2014".

Take a moment to consider the achievements and the direction in which things are heading.

That year began with a quarterly rate of economic growth of 1 per cent. After the budget it slid to 0.5 per cent, and then to 0.3 per cent. It's falling, rather than rising.
The direction is down….

The Reserve Bank made its view about economic growth clear on Tuesday. Here's what it said when it cut rates an hour or two before its governor briefed Cormann and others in cabinet:

"In Australia the available information suggests that growth is continuing at a below-trend pace, with domestic demand growth overall quite weak."

It's weak and it's bleak. It isn't heading "in the right direction".

Looking ahead the Reserve Bank expects growth to remain "a little below trend for somewhat longer, and the rate of unemployment peak a little higher, than earlier expected."

Unemployment has climbed from a quarterly rate of 5.3 per cent at the end of 2012 to 5.8 per cent at the end of 2013 to 6.2 per cent at the end of 2014. We get the first figures for 2015 on Thursday.

The direction is undeniably clear, but it's not the right one. Unemployment is worse than it was at the peak of the global financial crisis. The Reserve Bank expects it to get worse still...

Hockey and Cormann will tell you that while unemployment is growing, employment is too. But it's not, really. The number of hours worked per month grew barely at all throughout 2014. More people may have been employed at the end of the year than the start but on average they've been working less, some shifting to part-time work and others to fewer hours of full-time work. Disturbingly, the Reserve Bank says the number of hours worked per month has scarcely changed since December 2011 despite three years of population growth.

None of these facts would surprise anyone in business or anyone looking for a job. What would surprise them would be to hear from the team at the top that things are "heading in the right direction". It would make them think they were being lied to….

Joe Hockey's first budget was far worse than it seemed on the night in part because he didn't tell us the truth about it on the night. The usual calculations showing the households that won or lost were missing.  The treasury had prepared them as usual, the treasurer withheld them.

And he made up stuff. He said treasury had told him that fuel excise was "a progressive tax". It hadn't. He said the poorest Australians "either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases," something many of them know to be untrue. Petrol takes up a much bigger share of a low-income budgets than high-income budgets.  

He said his own wealthy electorate of North Sydney had "one of the highest bulk-billing rates in Australia". It had one of the very lowest in all of Sydney. He said "higher income households pay half their income in tax". They pay nothing like half. Even those on $200,000 pay just 36 per cent. Back from his holidays this January he revived the claim and went further saying typical Australians pay nearly half their income in tax.

"When Australians spend the first six months of the year working for the government with tax rates nearly 50 cents in the dollar it is a disincentive. You're working July, August, September, October, November, December just for the government and then you start working for yourself and your own household income after that for another six months, he said.

But Australia's tax-to-GDP ratio is around 30 per cent, including account all taxes, state and federal. It simply can't be the case that typical Australians pay nearly half their income in tax. They don't.

And exaggerated claims have eaten away at trust. Hockey said Australia was on track to run out of money to pay for its health, welfare and education systems. The figures put forward by his then health minister suggested otherwise. In ten years the cost of Medicare had climbed 124 per cent, the cost of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 90 per cent and the cost of public hospitals 83 per cent. But Australia's gross domestic product - the money we would use to pay for these things - climbed 94 per cent.

The government tells us it's concerned about future generations, but won't release the treasury's intergenerational report. It tells us it wants a discussion about tax, but won't release the tax discussion paper finalised late last year.

Without trust we lack confidence. We are neither spending nor investing what we should. Business and consumer confidence has been sliding since September….

The government itself has become an impediment to economic growth…..

Something for Australian 'welfare bashers' to think about

http://youtu.be/-rtySUhuokM

So how is Federal Coalition Treasurer Joe Hockey managing Australia's national budget?

Joe Hockey as Opposition Shadow Treasurer in The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 May 2012:

''Labor has now sought increases in the debt limit of the Commonwealth from $75 billion to $200 billion, to $250 billion and now $300 billion. On each occasion they promise not to exceed the limit. Well, enough is enough - we are going to keep them to their promises''

Joe Hockey as Federal Coalition Treasurer in The Herald Sun, 28 September 2013:

Mr Hockey also said the Coalition would raise the $300 billion debt ceiling before Christmas ...

The Australian Government currently issues debt securities to the public in the form of Treasury Bonds, Treasury Indexed Bonds and Treasury Notes.

Here are the Abbott Government’s officially announced intentions to raise money from domestic/international sources: [updated 17.12.13]

18 September intends to borrow $800 million

20 September intends to borrow $800 million

25 September intends to borrow $800 million

26 September intends to borrow $1 billion

27 September intends to borrow $500 million

2 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million

3 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million

4 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million

9 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million

10 October 2013 intends to borrow $500 million

11 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
16 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
17 October 2013 intends to borrow $1 billion
18 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
24 October 2013 intends to borrow $1.5 billion
25 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million

29 October 2013 intends to borrow $200 million
30 October 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
31 October 2013 intends to borrow $1 billion
1 November 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
6 November 2013 intends to borrow $600 million
7 November 2013 intends to borrow $1.5 billion
8 November 2013 intends to borrow $1 billion
8 November 2013 intends to borrow an additional unspecified amount
12 November 2013 intends to borrow $150 million
13 November 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
14 November 2013 intends to borrow $1 billion
15 November 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
21 November 2013 intends to borrow $500 million
22 November 2013 intends to borrow $800 million
26 November 2013 intends to borrow an additional unspecified amount

4 December 2013 intends to borrow $800 million

6 December 2013 intends to borrow $1.5 billion
10 December 2013 intends to borrow $100 million
11 December 2013  intends to borrow $800 million
13 December 2013 intends to borrow $700 million
15 January 2014 intends to borrow an additional unspecified amount

24 January 2014 intends to borrow $500 million
11 February 2014 intends to borrow an additional unspecified amount

In the first 128 days of the Abbott Government total borrowings from these sources will exceed $27.7 billion or over $216.4 million a day.

It would appear that the current Federal Coalition Government is borrowing at the same a higher rate as than the former Federal Labor Government. However, It has committed to raising the debt ceiling to $500 billion before 12 December 2013.

So there is no slowing down of the increase in the much dog whistled national debt since Joe Hockey became Treasurer - just as there is apparently the same downward trend in the rate of asylum seeker boat arrivals between the second Rudd Government and the current Abbott Government.

Australian Government Economic Statement August 2013

Full Economic Statement here.