Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is internationally recognised as having some of the lowest debt-to-GDP levels in the world. It is also internationally recognised that we have the highest household debt levels in the world. If you want to talk about a debt that is a problem in this country, let's talk about household debt. It came up repeatedly during estimates. That is the issue we should be focusing on here.

Senator Hanson comes in here—I note she did not stay for the rest of the debate to listen to the other speakers, where she might have learnt something. I wanted to point this out very clearly. When she talks about a debt ceiling, what she is saying is that debt is bad. That is code for, 'austerity measures are good'. That is code for, 'more zombie cuts to government spending'. That is code for, 'attacking the vulnerable in Australia'. We have been through this in the last four years with the Liberal-National government—cutting the most vulnerable in this country.

I supported, and the Greens supported, the government lifting the debt ceiling because we supported a more mature conversation in Australia around the use of debt. I am very pleased that in the recent budget the government has adopted the Greens approach of splitting up the accounts into debt for capital, which is often referred to as 'good debt'; and debt for a current expenditure, which unfortunately is referred to as 'bad debt'. Both those debts can be seen as investment. They are investment in our people, in our social safety net, in our health care and in infrastructure projects that actually raise productivity and return long-term benefits to the Australian community, workforces, businesses and citizens. Debt itself is not bad. Whether you see the level of debt as being too high depends on debt serviceability, the ability to service the debt.

I have no doubt that One Nation has come in here today to raise this issue because they want to set limits on investments we can make in our people. When they say they want a debt ceiling, what they really want is a compassion ceiling in Australia. They want to cap the amount of good that this parliament can do to help Australians. I philosophically disagree with Senator Smith. I believe that government should play a strong role in our life—yes, it is a healthy thing—I agree. I agree the government should play a strong role in our lives. It should be setting up an infrastructure bank in this country and co-investing with the private sector and directly investing in long-term infrastructure projects. I chaired a select committee that showed we had nearly a trillion dollars in underinvestment in this country. That is how you produce sustainable jobs and sustainable growth.

The Greens believe we should be putting long-term debt funding—off-balance-sheet capital funding—into Renew Australia—$70 billion to transition out of coal fired power into clean energy. We want to see money go into a federal housing trust to build housing for low-income Australians. My colleague Senator Rhiannon has done a lot of work on that. We can have debt in this country at manageable levels. We are nowhere near the debt troubles that we see internationally. If you focus on debt, it is actually not the debt that the credit rating agencies were worried about; it was economic growth and growth forecasts. So let's get that straight.

What we have a problem with in this country is household debt. Extremely high, dangerous levels of debt leverage financial system risk, not to mention that debt, like a black hole, sucks up capital out of the economy. That is productive capital that could be going into investment. This is what people who understand economics and finance are talking about in this country, not what One Nation is in here talking about—some arbitrary debt ceiling—because somehow they think they are going to get a cut-through headline. Debt to One Nation, debt to the Liberal Party means austerity. It means cuts to expenditure; it means attacking the vulnerable. I had hoped that this parliament had moved beyond this, with some of the measures we saw in the recent budget, to at least have a sensible discussion on debt. We do not need any more trickle-down economics nor the idea that somehow we should be promoting austerity agendas or leaving it all to big business.

Government should play an active role in our life. That means government should spend money carefully. It should make sure that it is targeted in the right areas and that it is an investment in our people, in our health care, in our education, in our infrastructure—the kinds of things that Australians expect us to perform as parliamentarians. There should be no more of this rubbish about debt ceilings.