Mr Gibbons, please do not mislead your electorate by comparing government debt to Gross Domestic Product to determine affordability. The money is borrowed by the government and therefore must be compared to the governments “income”, the same way people’s individual loans are measured, and that is based on income. 

According to more forecasts, Australia’s debt is $259 billion and at the same time Treasury estimates budget savings at 

$1.2 billion. At that rate, debt of that magnitude will take 208 years to repay (without interest) if the budget was balanced (inflows equalling outflows). According to Mr Gibbons, this is very affordable! Where will the savings come from to repay the debt or how much extra tax will this mean for hardworking Australian’s already saddled with increasing taxes? 

The fact is your government is on a reckless spending spree and you have nothing of quantifiable or perpetual substance to show for it. To borrow the recent words of an economist, “If this government were a household, they would be divorced, broke, receiving financial counselling or appearing on A Current Affair.

Stop comparing our debt situation to other countries to justify it. That is a fool’s paradise! The other assertions in his letter regarding the economy are debateable – the unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent is already a fiddle. In addition to this, every other day there are reports of companies shedding staff and so that number, whatever it should read, won’t last for long. So much for “growth across all sectors”. 

The RBA cash rate being low is a sign of economic weakness, not strength. This is hardly something you can claim credit for and the same can be said of inflation. If the debt cycle continues we will surely lose that AAA rating again.

Apart from growing debt, the real problem is the country’s productivity which continues its downward spiral. This is the real measure of how we are faring as a country. We are now in a very poor position on a competitive basis with our international peers and our manufacturing base is continuing to shrink. 

It is little wonder that our share market continues to perform poorly, again one of the worst performing in the world. This of course is reflected in many superannuation balances. It is little wonder many of us have lost confidence seeing our taxes literally go down the drain. 

I regard myself as a political moderate, having voted for both parties at various times. At the moment I, like many other reasonable people, believe quite strongly that we need a change and soon. Only then could they achieve relevance and the respect of the wider electorate. 

Michael Camm

?Bendigo