Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I think that is a question about what is included in net debt. What I was trying to explain to the senator previously was that net is more often used in international comparisons to measure the relative debt positions of economies. Net debt only includes those financial assets which have debt like characteristics. On the asset side, it includes term deposits held at the Reserve Bank, cash and other deposits, and loans to students of foreign governments. It does not include equity assets. There is some discussion that as governments have moved towards more diversified assets this perhaps has become less useful as a measure of a government's financial position and that a broader—