Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Monday 27th June, 2011

Debt increases as Govt borrows from super funds

It was confirmed in Estimates today that the Green-Labor Government has once again written itself an ‘IOU’ and is ‘borrowing’ money from the funds set aside for superannuation payments and other purposes.

It was also revealed in Budget Estimates today that gross debt under the Green-Labor Government has blown out to $2.4 billion, an increase of around $700 million since Labor came to power in 1998.

The Treasurer said today it was alright to have debt if you had enough cash to offset it. However, the problem the Green-Labor Government has is that the cash it is using to offset the debt is already allocated to other areas like public sector superannuation and insurance.

The ‘hay in the barn’, as the Treasurer likes to call it, was there in the first place to pay out the Government’s liabilities, such as superannuation and insurance. However, the Government has been using the funds that have been built up in these accounts to fund the operations of Government for the last three years.

This is just another example of Tasmanians being expected to pay for the shabby financial management of the Green-Labor Government.