Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for her question. It is the case that Australian state governments do borrow on financial markets and, most particularly and most importantly, they borrow to finance critical economic infrastructure. They have been doing that for some time because it builds the nation, it creates jobs and it expands our productive capacity. So the states are borrowing. I could not give you the figure that they have out there at the moment, or what the total amount of state government borrowings is, but they do that and they do it with the approval of the Australian Loan Council. If the member wants to know what the total amount of state government borrowings stands at today, I could not give her that final figure, but I would be more than happy to supply it to her after question time. I am quite happy to supply that. But I would make a more general point about debt, and this is very important because—

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