Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad that the minister interjects because I wanted to talk about foreign debt as well because this has not been addressed. I know that the Treasurer says, ‘Look, Australia is in a very healthy position because there’s not any federal government debt.’ It is a good thing that there is no federal government debt. But, whether Australia’s debt burden is due wholly to government, wholly to private enterprise or to a combination of both, what you have to look at is what our foreign debt is. It is now half a trillion dollars. In fact, that 0.25 per cent increase has meant that on that foreign debt we will be paying something like $283 million a year extra just on interest payments. Foreign debt, which has absolutely ballooned in the 10 years of the coalition, means that Australia now has a burden of $24,276 of foreign debt for every man, woman and child in Australia. I will repeat that, Mr Deputy Speaker, because you probably do not believe it, but it is the figure. There is $24,276 of foreign debt for every man, woman and child in Australia, and there is no prospect of it diminishing.

It is all very well to say, ‘Look, it’s reputable banks that are borrowing that money from overseas.’ Yes, it is, but we still have to pay the interest. Whether it is banks or anyone else, Australia still has to earn sufficient income to be able to pay that. As the chief executive of Bluestone, Alistair Jeffery, said, this problem is a ‘bus smash waiting to happen’, and it is unaddressed in the budget.

I wanted to talk about our trade deficit because the honourable member for Blair, a member of the coalition, has courageously raised this as an issue. Why wouldn’t he? We are now into our 49th consecutive trade deficit. We are heading for half a century, and again there seems to be no plan in this budget to try to rectify it. The Minister for Trade said that in his watch as Minister for Trade he wanted to double the number of exporters. That is a very worthwhile objective and is certainly one that is totally supported by the opposition. But the reality is that, far from increasing the number of exporters by one, we have actually gone backwards. The number of exporters has diminished. No wonder the honourable member for Blair says we have a king-size problem with our consecutive trade deficits.

There is so much that we believe could have been done in this budget, like building our skills base so that we can become a far more productive country. There is no need for us to import Chinese apprentices into Australia to overcome our skills shortages. There are many young Australians that are only too happy to take up those opportunities. I will have one last word on Spotlight. The Prime Minister says these low wages encourage employment. He used Mount Druitt as the example. Why then in the budget forecast is unemployment forecast to grow and not diminish? This is a disappointing budget.

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