Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I am asked about debt. It is important to recognise a couple of things. The first is that all the debt figures are published, in the usual way, in the budget papers. The second point I would make is that, despite the fear campaign from Senator Joyce—although I notice that Mr Hockey is now trying to tone his rhetoric down a little—Australia's debt remains very low by international standards. Our net debt peaks at 11.4 per cent of GDP, which is about one-eighth of the average of the advanced economies. In other words, the debt of the major advanced economies is on average eight times greater than Australia's. So I think it is an important economic fact to get into the discussion, because there is a lot of economic fiction, particularly from Senator Joyce, that gets put into the debate.