Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly, Mr Speaker. We have seen, for example, that coal prices have halved in the last six months. All of that has had a dramatic impact on the Queensland budget. We have seen that the Queensland government, along with other state governments, has borrowed in recent years to build critical economic infrastructure. Of course, one of the reasons they have borrowed to build critical economic infrastructure is that those opposite would not make any of those investments precisely at the time they were needed, particularly in the resource rich states. So it is the case that Australian states have borrowed in recent years to finance critical economic infrastructure.

Indeed, the member for Higgins ticked off on much of this when he was in the Treasury position. He, as Chairman of the Loan Council, ticked off on much of this borrowing by state governments in recent years. Something like $13 billion worth of borrowing by state government in recent years was ticked off by the member for Higgins. Of course, the other thing that state governments had to do, particularly in areas like health, was borrow, because the federal government at that time did not come to the party and, instead, seriously cut health funding. So, yes, state governments have been borrowing responsibly to fund critical economic infrastructure, and that was signed off by the previous government through the member for Higgins as Chairman of the Loan Council at that time.

This country, nationally and at a state level, has been hit by a global recession. That, of course, has had a dramatic impact on our budget revenues and on state government budget revenues, and that has led to a decision by a rating agency to downgrade the state of Queensland. It has certainly had that impact, and the cause of that is the global recession. What we see in the House today is a sharp difference between the Rudd government on this side and the Turnbull led opposition on that side, who say: ‘Nothing should be done about that. You should just sit and wait and see.’ On that side of the House, their attitude to this situation is very simple: governments should not act—in our case, have a temporary deficit so we can create jobs and cushion the Australian economy. In the case of the Queensland government, the opposition are saying it should not be borrowing—

See this speech in context