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

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. This is part of his debt scare campaign that he has been attempting to mount in this House day in day out. Of course he cannot ever quite get all his figures right or facts right. That does not seem to matter at all, because they are not interested in an alternative economic policy; they are just interested in a scare campaign. They are not interested in supporting jobs; they are just interested in another scare campaign, which is where the question comes from today.

I have had several questions about this from the shadow Treasurer over recent weeks. Basically, he has asked me what percentage of our bonds on issue is owned by people overseas. And the answer is: roughly two-thirds. That has not changed from the time of the former government. It was roughly two-thirds then and it is roughly two-thirds now.

There were amendments attempted to be moved in this House last night. They could not get them right—they stuffed that up—and they had to go up and move them in the Senate today. And of course those amendments did go through the Senate today. They are amendments seeking greater detail as to what or who may be the individual investors. At the moment the data that is provided by the Bureau of Statistics. It does not give the sort of detail that the member opposite is seeking so what we have said we will do reasonably is look at whether we can get, in an accurate fashion, more data. I made the offer to him in the House last night that we would sit down with our advisers, with the Treasury, and through the ABS, and attempt to do that. I made that clear, Mr Speaker.

But, of course, it is not about that. What it is really about is this debt scare campaign. Australia has low levels of net debt compared to every other economy in the world—very low compared to every other major advanced economy. I think it pays to go through them. If we take the period to 2014 and go through levels of net debt around the world, they are: United Kingdom, 83 percent; United States, 83 percent. Major advanced—

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