Debt

Australia is unlikely to be debt-free until 2080 as a result of the lockdowns implemented in response to COVID-19. The much anticipated 2020-21 Budget does not even attempt to highlight a path out of debt and deficits, leaving mainstream Australians with little hope that the bill for the largest public policy failure in the nation’s history will be paid off

Modelling by the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, based on data from the Commonwealth Government Budget and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, estimates that: Gross Commonwealth government debt will peak at $2.05 trillion in 2045. Gross Commonwealth government debt will not be paid off until the year 2080. A Budget Surplus will not return until 2046.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg yesterday delivered a sobering economic statement to Parliament. In stark contrast to the premature “back in the black” celebration just 12 months ago, the Treasurer detailed the “significant increase in government debt which will take many years to repay”. In the absence of any meaningful scrutiny from the opposition, the coronavirus pandemic has effectively given the government

“Australia could have $1 Trillion worth of debt within 3 years. The only way to repay this monumental amount of debt is for Australia to become more productive,” said John Roskam, Executive Director of free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Total debt was $556 billion going into the crisis. The recently announced fiscal measures by the federal

Professor Sinclair Davidson, IPA Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Institutional Economics at RMIT University, joined us on The Young IPA Podcast this week. Here’s some of what he had to say: Why Australia hasn’t seen meaningful tax reform since 2007 Well there’s two things that have really happened. The first is we’ve had a lack of economic leadership. Peter

“This Budget lacks the ambition needed to fix the deep structural problems with our national economy and finances. Taxes will continue to rise, and government will remain too big”, said Daniel Wild, research fellow with the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. “It is disappointing that debt will continue to grow to over $600 billion, and that

Australian students have the immense privilege of being able to attend a world-class university regardless of their bank balance, or family background. And that will continue under the government’s recently announced plans to make students foot more of the bill for their degree, and to start paying it back sooner. The beauty of Australia’s higher education contribution scheme, or ‘HECS’

The latest annual IMF Australia Consultation might have passed unnoticed but for this highly damning statement: “the new mediocre”. Perhaps they were being polite – Australia’s lacklustre fiscal performance has become the new normal or just mediocre. There is nothing new about the increasing debt and ongoing deficits we have experienced since the Rudd government panicked in 2008 and went

From The Australian today: Australia’s gross public debt is on track to rise from $474bn as of last month to more than $600bn within the next three years — even including the government’s reform measures — which will amount to around $23,500 a person. Such calculations include swaths of the Australian population who will shoulder little of the debt repayment. There

Despite four prime ministers and four treasurers since 2013, Australia’s budget situation has not improved. Only Chris Bowen has no case to answer as his time as treasurer was too short for any serious budget repair work to have been attempted. It was the then prime minister Kevin Rudd who initially unleashed the spending and Julia Gillard who added fuel.