Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Mr Acting Deputy President; the minister for the environment. He drove that truck around and then parked it. We have not seen it since because in the last 10 years foreign debt has increased from $167 billion to almost $500 billion. That is what Australians owe to the rest of the world—$500 billion. It has almost trebled, and Senator Minchin said back in 1995 that $167 billion in foreign debt was ‘just mind-boggling’ and ‘beyond the comprehension of most Australians’. He said that this would put upward pressure on interest rates. That is the importance of the foreign debt issue: if you have high foreign debt you need to import the capital and you need to fund that and that puts upward pressure on interest rates. That is why today, because of the need to import capital, Australia has the second highest interest rate of 19 advanced economies. When they were in opposition, the government had a lot of concern about foreign debt when they brought out the debt truck. That was when the debt was $167 billion. But today they are not interested in foreign debt and its consequences of upward pressure on interest rates, and foreign debt has reached almost $500 billion. (Time expired)