# Australian debt ceiling



## moXJO (4 August 2011)

Thought this was interesting (saw it on another forum). Not sure if it has been discussed before


> The Australian government may have difficulty operating unless lawmakers approve an increase to the country’s gross debt ceiling, Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson said.
> “I couldn’t imagine the parliament would be so foolish not to do so,” Parkinson told the Senate Economics estimates committee in Canberra today about approving the laws. “Were that to be the case, it would have serious ramifications for the operations of government and I would imagine the government in those circumstances would be forced to find other ways.”
> The government introduced laws to parliament on May 10 to raise the gross debt ceiling to A$250 billion ($277 billion) from the current A$75 billion to deal with budget deficits. The opposition Liberal-National coalition, which is leading opinion polls ahead of an election due in 2013, has accused the government of being addicted to debt and opposes the plan.
> Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard relies on support from four lower house lawmakers that aren’t part of her party or the Liberal-National coalition to pass legislation after the August 2010 election delivered the closest result for 70 years. The debt laws are yet to be debated in parliament.
> Australia’s economy shrank in the first quarter by 1.2 percent, the most in 20 years, after rains flooded coal mines, railways and farmland which hurt exports from the world’s biggest coal and iron ore shipper, figures released today showed. That has reduced tax revenue.




http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-01/australia-must-raise-debt-ceiling-treasury-secretary-says-1-.html

This was also raised



> Apparently, on the night of the Budget speech, after everyone buggered off and all of the cameras were turned off, Bill Shorten quietly went back into the chamber and introduced further legislation to increase Australia's debt ceiling from 75B up to 250B.....can someone check if this is true or not ??






> Yes, this is true. The debt ceiling was raised to $250B, from $200B on budget night. The amount had been raised form $75B to $200B two years prior.




I thought Labor was going to bring the budget back to surplus and start paying the debt back, so why the need to increase the ceiling?


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## Aussiejeff (4 August 2011)

moXJO said:


> I thought Labor was going to bring the budget back to surplus and start paying the debt back, so why the need to increase the ceiling?




Labor's latest pipedream, the High Speed Train, is likely to cost up to AU$108 Billion for a start.

Then there's undoubtedly a whole crapload of as-yet-not-made-public Labor "futuredreams" that will cost us $Billions more. 

So yeah. 

They need some more "headroom" in the Ivory Tower to accomodate for all that extra pipedreram smoke....

Like all pollies, they will make hay while the sun shines out of their a$$e$.


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## Knobby22 (4 August 2011)

I don't understand.
Our system works by passing a budget. Why would we want to create a debt ceiling?? Why are we using USA terms. We just call it a borrowing limit.

Found this:

Australia will require legislative change to increase debt ceiling 
According to Citi's economists:

"The higher deficit projections until the Budget returns to surplus in FY13 imply an increase in the funding task of $A225bn in FY12. We do not expect this to materially impact interest rates, although the higher deficit forecast will require a change in legislation to raise the debt ceiling from the current $A200bn


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## Aussiejeff (4 August 2011)

Knobby22 said:


> I don't understand.
> Our system works by passing a budget. Why would we want to create a debt ceiling??




Well, I think it would be fair to say the Federal government yearly "budget" is only a "guesstimate" nominal figure plucked from the Treasurer's a$$, liable to massive change at short notice 

I suppose we are enamoured of the American system with their "debt ceiling", so of course we will have to have one of those too.

I'll have french fries with mine....


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## MichaelThomas (4 August 2011)

Because households are frantically trying to pay off debt because of high interest rates, is that why the government has to increase their spending and subsequently their debt ceiling?

Surely lowering interest rates would help matters. It would help families, it would lower the Aussie dollar which would help tourism and education and exporters. Why are we keeping the rates so high and going into more debt when we're apparently one of the strong nations?


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## Tysonboss1 (4 August 2011)

MichaelThomas said:


> Because households are frantically trying to pay off debt because of high interest rates, is that why the government has to increase their spending and subsequently their debt ceiling?
> 
> ?




I thought interest rates were still quite low,


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## Tysonboss1 (4 August 2011)

Aussiejeff said:


> .
> 
> Then there's undoubtedly a whole crapload of as-yet-not-made-public Labor "futuredreams" that will cost us $Billions more.




But these costs are offset by the as-yet-not-made-public labor "future Taxes" that will bring in $Billions more.


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## Aussiejeff (4 August 2011)

Tysonboss1 said:


> But these costs are offset by the as-yet-not-made-public labor "future Taxes" that will bring in $Billions more.




Sorry. I forgot about Wayne $wan's Perfectly Balanced Budget Books. The man's a pure geniar$e..


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## finnsk (4 August 2011)

Maybe our dept is going to look like this one day
http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/


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## Tisme (2 December 2014)

Rather interesting comparing the net debt figures and loans treatment of some random finance dept balance sheets:

2013 January http://www.finance.gov.au/publicati...nancial-statements/2013/mfs-january-2013.html

2014 January http://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default/files/mfs-january-2014_0.pdf

2014 August  http://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default/files/mfs-july-august.pdf


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## Tisme (19 February 2016)

Now there is an election due around mid year, I'm wondering if Labor will be parading the current govt's excessive expenditure against record income and continuing debt or if they will do the usual lay down  and get the blame routine while they concentrate on the plight of homosexual marriage instead?


Of course similar could be said for Malcolm and his bleeding heart for his homosexual mates too, plus the pesky royal family.

It would be nice to know what both parties stand for so I could feel a pang of emotion when I don't vote for either.


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