Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

it is a very fine day for me and I am sure it is a very fine day for you too. But we have different types of debt. You can borrow money to invest in the future and you can borrow money particularly, as we would, for a business, a house or an investment. In doing so, you are actually borrowing money in the hope that you may realise more money at some time in the future. I think that is pretty much how all investment and business develops everywhere in the world. It is something that has been happening for a million years and will probably happen for a million more. But there is also debt where you actually have to borrow money just to pay the interest on what you have already earned—you have to borrow money to pay for your recurrent expenditure. It is a little bit like borrowing money to pay off your credit card. It is not a very smart thing to do. It is certainly not something that is sustainable in the longer term, as many people have found out to their detriment. First of all, I think it is a little disingenuous for the Labor Party to come in here and start talking about the fact that they were the ones who introduced a debt ceiling and that we were the ones who took it off, but I think we certainly need to understand the difference between different types of debt. For that reason I commend this government for their responsible fiscal management.