Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I can. The government inherited a budget heaving with a trillion dollars of debt and with ongoing budget deficits stretching beyond a decade. As much as those opposite would like to rewrite history on debt and make it all about the pandemic, it had been doubled before the pandemic hit. It had been doubled after making commitments about lowering debt. They doubled it; that went on before the pandemic. The facts are very clear on that. We know that the increase in interest rates could add more than $16 billion in costs across the forward estimates and over $120 billion over the coming decade, just because of the increasing interest rate impact on debt. At the moment, servicing the debt burden that was forecast in the March budget is costing more than the PBS, more than child care, more than higher education and more than government schools. That's what's going on. (Time expired)