George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here the bank customer is the Treasurer. So the Treasurer walks in and says, 'I want a loan for $144 billion, Mr Bank Manager.' The bank manager: 'Certainly, Mr Treasurer; what was your income last year?' The Treasurer: 'It was around $330 billion.' The bank manager: 'Okay, Mr Treasurer. Let's go through your actual expenditure. Oh boy! It looks like you've got a lot of dependants. I've got down here that you've got a lot of welfare recipients. Foreign aid's increasing. You're letting other people into your household as well—asylum seekers. You're increasing expenditure on that. I see that you've bought some school halls and the value of them is about half of what you actually paid for them. And what's this purchase here for flammable pink batts? What's that all about, Mr Treasurer?' After the bank manager has gone through the books and had a look at all the expenditure, he turns to the Treasurer and says: 'So, Mr Treasurer, what was your expenditure actually last year?' And the Treasurer mumbles something. The bank manager says: 'What was that, Mr Treasurer?' The Treasurer: 'Oh, it was about $374 billion.' The bank manager: 'That's about $43 billion more than you actually earned. You are spending more than you have earned. Mr Treasurer, how are you going to actually pay back this loan that you are trying to get from me?' The Treasurer: 'Oh, that's easy. I'll just come back to you and get another loan and I'll pay the interest off with that.'

That is what the government is doing: raising the debt ceiling again and again and taking out another loan to pay off the interest that this nation currently owes. That loan will get even bigger next year. He will raise the debt ceiling again and borrow more money to pay that interest. We see something from the West Australian today where they actually state that:

The interest bill on the nation’s $267 billion gross debt, to be revealed when the Budget is handed down on May 14, is expected to be at least $1 billion worse and could be pushed out even further.

That is a terrible legacy to leave for our nation because today's debt, the debt that this government has engaged in, is tomorrow's taxes. We are saddling a whole generation with this, and the money that we are using to spend on interest is not going into worthy infrastructure projects around the nation which would otherwise be funded.

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