Sunday Mail Column - $300 billion - 31 May 2009

Three hundred billion dollars.

Is that so hard to say? You can put on your best Dr Evil voice and say it but it is no joke. It is our national debt. This is an excerpt from Lateline on the ABC:

Tony Jones (ABC Journalist): That figure is $300-billion, is that right?

Kevin Rudd: As I said before, 13.8 per cent of GDP as described accurately in the Budget papers. There's nothing new about that.

Tony Jones: Is there a political spin rule which says the Prime Minister must not say that figure? Because it seems very hard to get you to say $300-billion.

Kevin Rudd: Well, Tony, there seems to be a political spin rule on your part to go back to this time and time again. The Treasurer made this absolutely plain in the Budget papers. I said before the figure was 300...

After the federal budget has been released, Parliament adjourns for a week and traditionally the Prime Minister and the Treasurer travel the country "selling" the budget. They visit every major city, re-announcing projects that will benefit the local community, and try to consolidate in voter's minds the main 'selling points'. This is as it ever has been, and while it may be a bit cynical, there's nothing especially wrong with the idea - it is part of the national dialogue, although the spin is getting a bit out of hand under this government.

This is why it was impossible to take a photo of Kevin Rudd for 10 days without him wearing a safety jacket and hard hat. That was the message he was trying to sell.

For journalists, the main feature of this week is looking for the 'nasties' hidden in the Budget, and trying to trip up a major figure on one of these 'nasties'. Australian journalists are very good at this, even when the news in the Budget is overwhelmingly positive.

This budget, you may recall, delivered the country its biggest debt and deficit in our nation's history. In 18 months the turnaround from surplus budgets and zero government debt under the previous Government became $58 billion budget deficit and $300 billion in debt under the Labor Government. The bad news in this Budget couldn't be hidden in the fine print, because the headline figures of debt and deficit were all so dreadful.

In an overwhelming blast of cynicism though, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer refused to admit it. For the first time I have ever seen in all my years in politics, the Treasurer gave a Budget speech that didn't mention the Budget figures. And for two weeks we had the embarrassing spectacle of Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan working hard to sell the Budget, without being willing to tell the Budget figures to anyone out loud.

During a press conference in Adelaide, the Treasurer Wayne Swan refused to say the word "billion", or the word "dollars". According to reports when asked what the debt was said "...if you want the figures, the net debt figure is 203, the gross debt figure is 315 in that year."

Mr Swan was then pushed to say the word billion which he described as "playing silly games."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, this time on Adelaide's own ABC 891:

Matthew Abraham (ABC Journalist): In simple dollar terms, what will our net debt peak at?

Kevin Rudd: Well, our net debt of course will peak at in 2013/2014 at around about 200, our gross debt at about 300...

Matthew Abraham: Prime Minister, 200 what and 300 what ?

Kevin Rudd: These are billion figures.

Matthew Abraham: So two hundred billion dollars -

Kevin Rudd: That's correct yeah...

So why didn't the Prime Minister and Treasurer want to say "three hundred billion dollars"?

The answer is spin. The sprawling media unit in the Prime Ministers office came up with the idea that if Messrs Rudd and Swan didn't say the words, and avoided talking about it, then maybe people wouldn't talk about it either. What happened instead was that everyone talked about the fact our Prime Minister and Treasurer were trying to avoid taking responsibility for the massive debt they had created.

As Malcolm Turnbull said, if you have a problem, the first thing you need to do is admit it. Then you can take steps to fix it.

What we have witnessed since Budget night is a Government consumed by attempts to spin their message, use tricks and misdirection to bamboozle us, but Australians are starting to take notice.

Australia's Prime Minister and Treasurer have spent most of the past fortnight appearing evasive and contrary, without the guts or gumption to take responsibility for the dire state of the nation's finances.

No wonder Kevin Rudd got a cheer when he finally admitted in Parliament this week that his debt would amount to "300 billion dollars". Unfortunately Wayne Swan admitted in the next answer that it was actually "315 billion dollars". Maybe they should have stuck to pretending not to know...