10 years of Howard: record debt

This week we learnt that the net foreign debt had reached $473 billion by the end of December.

That's almost two and a half times the $193 billion it was when Mr Howard came to office in March 1996 promising to do something about Labor's terribly irresponsible foreign debt.

Measured more sensibly - to take account of both inflation and the real growth in the size of the economy - it's gone from the equivalent of 38 per cent of gross domestic product to 51 per cent.

read more

Without action, future Australians will be paying off John Howard’s international trade deficits for many years.

History will remember the Howard period as an era of ideological obsession that focussed on destroying workers rights’ while mortgaging our future.

see also