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

The point I made last year, when we had this debt-fear campaign being run by those opposite, is that the debt that we have in this country is one-tenth of that of other major developed economies. The responsible thing to do in the circumstances in which we have found ourselves, during the five-year period in which we have had the most turbulence we have ever seen in the global economy since the Great Depression, is to run a responsible fiscal policy—a responsible fiscal policy which supports jobs and growth and which puts it in the framework of a medium-term fiscal strategy that is a commitment on surpluses on average and across the cycle—and that commitment remains.

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