Just a bit of a reminder of the debt situation that John Howard rid us of and Rudd/Gillard brought back with a vengeance.

As sloppy and monkey said, we will deliver a surplus in our first year, nek minute, another 10 billion , oh dear longy, epic fail

If you look at the beginning of the chart the first thing you see is a Liberal debt followed by Consecutive surpluses during the Whitlam era which immediately went back into debt during the Fraser years.

Yes we had a downturn in the 2008/ 9 / 10 years corresponding to the GFC.

Interesting is that we still see debt going backwards and expected to continue deteriorating under the Abbott Government.

We see that in 2011/12 it went from 9.9% GDP to 2012/13 10% GDP. (Latest Labor data - solid)

Then 2013/14 to 12.5% GDP  (libs poor result)

And then a projection for 2014/15 of 14.9% GDP. (projected Libs worse result)

The chart clearly demonstrates both a history of increased debt under the Liberals and specifically a worsening position under the Abbott Government.

In fact the whole chart shows the only good performance by the conservatives was the Howard years supported by the best world economic growth period in over a century and yet we now know in retrospect admittedly that they stuffed it up and left the economy damaged and vulnerable.

You assertions are completely shot down by your own data.

Dnarever wrote on Jan 5^th, 2015 at 7:24pm:


Rubbish Hockey promised a surplus in his first year, let's ignore the fact he said Swan was right when he said we had a revenue problem , labor had 6 years to reverse Howard's pork barreling , what we got was an advertising campaign from the big miners to ensure the MRRT was buried and ultimately Rudds demise, then we had carbon pricing that was working on a financial level with 4.5 billion worth of new projects in the pipeline under Labor, then we got abort with 3 word slogans without substance , the infrastructure PM , promising the world and delivering an atlas, with no new revenue streams, except the ones he abolished , anyone see the problem here 

Dnarever wrote on Jan 5^th, 2015 at 7:24pm:


good grief.  how dumb can you be?  much of that year Labor was in govt and ALL Of that year was a labor budget.  Look at Howards results in his first fiscal year.  Debt rose slightly. why?  because turning around a massive budget doesn't happen overnight.  Or do you want to blame your beloved keating for the appalling 83-85 results?

I'm pretty sure the 2nd last paragraph talks about Howard

Dsmithy70 wrote on Jan 5^th, 2015 at 7:53pm:



correct.  However, he is happy to give credit to the world economy rather than howard but in the 70s he is happy to blame howard rather than recognising the world-wide extended recession and stagflation.

at some point you have to choose a consistent position.

longweekend58 wrote on Jan 5^th, 2015 at 7:55pm:


to blame howard rather than recognising the world-wide extended recession and stagflation.


In that period Australia under performed the world largely due to Howards actions.

The world had recovered and Australia was still floundering with no solution in sight, it took a change of government to solve stagflation in Australia lagging dramatically behind everyone else.

If it wasn't so sad it would have been funny that Howards primary strategy to combat stagflation was to force cheaper employment, he believed he could create a pool of low wage employees by dramatically increasing unemployment for an economic gain.

A pool of cheap labour to supposably squash wage demand.

In the end what he achieved was stagflation plus dramatically higher unemployment.

The solution to fix the problems of treasurer Howard was to replace him with a treasurer named Keating.

Can not help but to notice that you had no problem blaming Swan for the GFC when he clearly out performed most of the world in that period but complain about Treasurer Howard being criticised when he had badly underperformed with the world economic issue of that time. Your hypocrisy is outstanding.