Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am quoting the report. It says:

… the public sector will have to go into sustained deficit to offset the negative effects on the economy from a rise in the household savings ratio.

This report is highly critical of Australia’s economic performance, saying:

If it does not come to an end from household debt saturation, the Australian boom from 1993 to date could easily end in a crisis in financing the balance of payments deficit.

It seems that the ACTU and Senator Barnaby Joyce have something in common. He is always pointing out the debt. The report goes on:

This would rebound on the household sector by raising prices (through increased costs of imported consumers’ goods due to devaluation) and by raising interest rates as well. The resulting fall in household incomes would reduce demand and generate unemployment.

Senator Arbib is here—and I hope he listens to this because he has some influence in the union movement. Here we have the industrial arm of the Rudd government saying that Australia faces rising prices, rising interest rates, lower incomes and higher unemployment—hardly a ringing endorsement of Rudd’s economic management. Yet no-one has held the ACTU to account.