9 December 2013

Debt limit abolished

The Federal Parliament has taken the important step of abolishing the nation's debt limit, which will provide certainty to markets about the Government’s capacity to finance the budget, and increasing transparency around Commonwealth borrowing.

This was a ceiling created by the Labor Party, who on four occasions then broke their own self-imposed limit because of their addiction to debt, and then did nothing to find an acceptable solution despite knowing it would be reached.

When called on to increase the limit to $500 billion all Labor could do was play politics.

As part of the agreement with the Greens, there will be increased transparency around government debt in the budget papers and greater parliamentary debate.

For Australians this will no longer be a debate about the debt limit – this will be a debate about Labor's multi-billion dollar legacy of debt that, on current figures, is set to well exceed $400 billion.