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

I will obtain the figures for you. We have six bills. We have quite a number of advisers. I have taken questions on notice and will come back as soon as the information is given to me. I have done that continuously all morning. I do not really know how you can complain that I do not have the figure right here in front of me. I will take advice and I have said I will get the figure and I will come back to you with it, as I have done all morning.

On the issue of net debt—and there has been quite a bit of discussion about net debt—Australia’s net debt in 2010 will be 5.2 per cent. I am not going to go down the list of all the countries and their net debt but I will just highlight a couple of them. Japan’s net debt in 2010 will be 93.7 per cent. As I say, Australia’s will be 5.2 per cent. Italy will be 90.1 per cent; the UK, 43 per cent; the US—where all this financial and economic crisis commenced—57.8 per cent net government debt. Australia’s will be 5.2 per cent. We have just seen the end of a conservative eight years in the United States, and their net debt in 2010 is estimated to reach 57.8 per cent. The point has been made time and time again that the net debt, in respect of GDP, of Australia in 2010 compared to those of other comparable economies is very good in the international context. We have the capacity and we have identified that the package is appropriate to urgently underpin the Australian economy, build the nation and support jobs.

I will conclude on this point. The opposition have been alleging that the Labor government is somehow responsible for all of this. We have an international financial and economic crisis that has its genesis in the United States. Frankly, I do not know where members of the Liberal-National Party opposition have been when we have seen bank after bank collapse in the US and the UK.