In August, Australia reached a sobering milestone: our national debt hit $1 trillion for the first time.
This isn’t just a number on a balance sheet. It has a real cost for every Australian.
We are now paying around $52,000 every 60 seconds in interest alone – that is $27 billion a year which delivers no new service, no new hospital, and no new infrastructure. This is money down the drain to service Labor’s debt.
This is money that could fund more than 200,000 new nurses, or provide around $1,800 in tax relief for every taxpayer, every year.
To put this into perspective, one year of interest payments would be enough to fund 325,000 first-home deposits. Two years could cover the annual childcare fees of 1.5 million Australian children. Or three years could pay off every Australian HECS debt. These are the opportunities being lost as our debt continues to grow.
The Government is effectively maxing out the national credit card, while expecting future generations to pick up the bill. This is happening at a time when Australians are already under pressure from rising costs, housing affordability challenges, and declining living standards.
Labor’s spending is growing at a rate four times faster than the economy itself, and the consequences of that spending will not disappear when the next election does. The debt will remain – and so will the interest bill.
Every dollar spent servicing this debt is a dollar that cannot be spent on Australians.
That means future generations face higher taxes, fewer choices and less capacity for governments to invest in the services they need.
The Coalition has a plan to pay down the debt with our Future Generations Fund, whilst also putting a speed limit on spending.
You can read more about our plan here: https://www.liberal.org.au/our-plan
Australians deserve confidence for the future – not a trillion-dollar debt bomb.
Yours sincerely,
Angie Bell MP
Federal Member for Moncrieff
