Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson has challenged Treasurer Jim Chalmers over rising government debt during question time, asking whether higher debt as a share of GDP is contributing to higher interest rates.
Wilson asked why debt as a proportion of GDP was increasing under Labor and whether the government would concede that it was putting upward pressure on interest rates.
During Chalmers’ response, Speaker Milton Dick ordered Nationals frontbencher Kevin Hogan and Labor MP Basem Abdo to leave the chamber after repeated interruptions.
Chalmers defended the government’s budget record, saying he was prepared to compare it with the Coalition’s record. The Coalition then raised a point of order over relevance, but Dick said Wilson had asked a broader-than-normal question and therefore Chalmers was entitled to give a broader-than-normal answer.
Chalmers said a range of factors affected government debt, including the war in Iran. He also argued that much of the debt had come from the former Coalition government.
The exchange came during a broader day of parliamentary debate over the government’s economic record, with the opposition pressing Labor over debt and its potential relationship with borrowing costs.
Source: The Guardian
