Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As I indicated in my initial comments, correlation is not causation. What we have from Senator Coonan and Liberal members opposite is the usual dishonest scare campaign, which has absolutely no basis in fact whatsoever. Australia’s borrowings are very low by international standards and represent a tiny fraction of global capital markets. So you cannot relate it to the increase of 0.1 per cent by the Commonwealth Bank. As I said earlier, correlation is not causation. I notice the member for North Sydney’s comments on borrowings. If he thinks these increases have an impact, with a background of borrowings of tens of trillions of dollars, his economics are even sloppier than I thought.