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September 19, 2013
The liberal mantra is that the Coalition will provide a calm, measured, steady and purposeful government. Its election campaign was to restore strong, stable and accountable government. That was premised on budget surpluses, small government and low government debt. The rhetoric of balancing budgets appealed to household economics of living within your means.
That was then. Things are different now.
Alan Moir
Government debt is good now. We don't hear that much about debt and deficits or budget black holes. The fear mongering has been dropped. It's the Liberals standard way of destroying the economic record of a Labor government.
Under the ALP the argument for debt was that continuing Australia's two-decade long run of growth after the mining boom would require building a more diversified economy, based on high-skilled jobs and high-value manufacturing exports. Success will take substantial investment in factories, offices and mines, roads, bridges, ports, railways, broadband and, above all, in education and training.
The Coalition realize they have to get the economy moving by trying to rush resource development projects faster than the private sector wishes and building roads for the high use of private cars--eg., Melbourne's East West Link road project and the WestConnex tunnel in Sydney.
Infrastructure for the Coalition means roads--ie., more freeways-- not public transport. It assumes the universal primacy of the private car even though public transport journeys are becoming the first choice for more people in our car-based capitol cities.
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Having no debt and a good income stream is better.