Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

It is much smaller? It may be much smaller, but we have determined, as a decisive government, that this package is necessary to underpin the economy and jobs.

The other point that I want to make is that there are still tax cuts in the forward estimates. I will give the details of those when I get them. There are still tax cuts coming. Just in the general macroeconomic debate, Senator Abetz’s contribution was misleading.

The other macro issue is that if you look back at the last 10 years and the payment down of government debt, what happened to private debt—personal debt—in this country? I do not have the figures here, but I know that it skyrocketed. The personal, private debt of individuals in this country increased very significantly. That is having an impact in the current circumstances. What did the former government do about the skyrocketing level of private debt in this country? They just let it go. On reflection, it seems to me that they did not exercise any effective macro and micro levers.