I totally – totally – agree with Scott Morrison. I am convinced there is good debt and bad debt. And that, sadly, is where my loyal support of the man who would be prime minister stops.
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There is good debt and there is bad debt – but I am confident he and I would never agree on what constitutes goodness. For me, goodness is about promoting social cohesion and providing safety nets.
The budget is just one week away from lift-off and I could not be more frightened – and that's saying something, since the mere idea of the Hockey budget made me as nauseous as the stink of cigars does.
So why is this one worrying me even more than the Hockey one? There's an expression in journalism called "flying a kite". It's the concept that a politician or politicians will test out a concept in the public arena and see how it flies. In Tony Harcup's 2009 book Journalism: Principles and Practice, he recounts that saying: "It's all right flying a kite but remember to keep hold of the string." In other words, yes, quote the politician but keep your feet on the ground, and hold the "kite" and its sponsor to account.
So here he is, flying his kite: "It can be very wise for governments to borrow, especially while rates are low, to lock in longer-term financing and invest in major growth-producing infrastructure assets, such as transport or energy infrastructure.
"But to rack up government debt to pay for welfare payments and other everyday expenses, is not a good idea. This is a critical part of ensuring that government lives within its means."
So, infrastructure good, welfare spending and other everyday expenses bad. Assets good, people bad. I guess that's why this government is married to negative gearing. It has a huge effect on the economy (revenue, housing affordability and so on) but Morrison and friends obviously consider this good debt. Sadly, we know from National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling research that more than half of the benefit of capital gains discount and negative gearing goes to the top 10 per cent of income earners. And that's tax revenue the Turnbull government happily forgoes.
For must of us, that's a very bad debt. Yes, we know the government doesn't go into debt for negative gearing but it's giving up revenue – our revenue. And this government can barely be trusted with infrastructure, as evidence by the catastrophe of the national broadband network.
My colleagues have already explained very well why it's impossible to have good and bad debt when we pay our taxes and only get a say on how those taxes are spent when we vote. There is no clear way to say which bit of the debt is going where. Morrison says: "These changes will make clearer the share of expenditure that is contributing to investment that increases productive capacity and produces future income and the debt that is being incurred to deal with everyday expenditure."
But I want to explore this idea that everyday spending is bad, that spending on welfare is bad. We all need to push back on the concept that it's only a particular kind of investment that increases productive capacity.
The Coaltion government began its attacks on ordinary Australians when it was elected in 2013. It started with an attempt to dismantle universal health coverage, fired up with ludicrous attacks on the Human Rights Commission and the laws that protect minorities; began a war on the poor; and continues with its attacks on education, most recently the proposed changes to university funding.
It couldn't win the Medicare battle because, if there is one thing that unites Australians, it's an attack on this beloved institution. One senior health wonk now says the government is trying to make nice over health because the public was, rightly, Mediscared. The electoral cost was huge and there's another deranged election around the corner.
But health, education and welfare are also investments: investments in people and widely accepted as driving productivity. How much we know, how often and how well we can contribute – these are all factors in how productive we are. The welfare, education system and health systems all cost money but they contribute to the kind of country we have, beyond roads, beyond mines, beyond a useless NBN.
The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments failed to protect those who weren't working, particularly single mothers, but this Abbott-Turnbull-Dutton government goes one worse: it punishes battlers with a battery of tests and promotes discourse that alienates us from each another. It uses debt collectors to bully the vulnerable. I fear it will now chase those on the minimum wage to repay HECS debts before these young Australians earn a decent wage.
It is ordinary – good – people who benefit from what Morrison has demonised as "bad debt". But we are not a nation of dole-bludgers, malingers and welfare scabs – just regular people getting along. Don't be fooled by good debt and bad debt. Be alert to good politicians and scathing of bad ones.
Our best investment should be in Australians, because our people are our biggest asset.
Jenna Price is a columnist for The Canberra Times and Daily Life and a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Twitter: @JennaPrice
Facebook: JennaPriceJournalist
