Government adopts Greens economic policy on debt

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, welcomes the adoption by Government of the economic policy the Greens took to the election regarding separating out recurrent spending from capital in the federal budget.

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “The Government has seemingly adopted wholesale the Greens economic policy of separating out recurrent spending and capital in their budget. This allows the public to have a clearer picture of how much the Government is investing into infrastructure versus gaining from privatisations.

“If Peter Costello had used this sort of accounting method it would have been clear he was running structural deficits fed by privatisation, tax cuts and an underinvestment in infrastructure.

“This policy emerged through a Senate Inquiry I Chaired into infrastructure financing early last year and the Government has repeatedly ruled out bringing it in as a policy until today. As recently as March this year, the Treasury Secretary played down the usefulness of separating the accounts in Senate Estimates.

“If by adopting this policy, the Government becomes more willing to take on more debt to invest in sustainable productive infrastructure like renewable energy, public transport for our congested cities and basic local services like water and sewerage, then this is a good thing for our cities and towns, and for the community and broader economy.

“However, the Greens warn this policy change should not be used by the Government to ramp up their war on vulnerable Australians. Much recurrent spending is also an investment in our communities, safety net and future, and should never simply be politicised and mislabelled as ‘bad debt.’

“Likewise, not all capital spending by Government is ‘good debt’ if it is spent on unsustainable projects without proper, transparent selection processes.”

A list of the times the Greens proposed and the Government opposed this policy is here: http://peter-whish-wilson.greensmps.org.au/articles/time-government-adopted-greens-economic-policy
Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson