Peter van Onselen hosted Kelly O'Dwyer and me on his Showdown program last night. We talked about the excellent performance of the Australian economy under the guidance of the Gillard Government's economic team, the real spending cuts in the latest budget, and the worldwide move towards carbon pricing.
At one point in the interview, we discuss spending changes in the latest budget. From 2011-12 to 2012-13, spending rose from $373.7B to $376.3B. Kelly O'Dwyer argued that this should be seen as an increase, but when you take inflation into account, it's actually a 1.8% fall in real government spending. Put another way, government spending as a percentage of GDP fell from 25.3% to 24.3%. In over 20 years in office, the Fraser and Howard Governments never once cut real government spending.http://www.youtube.com/embed/5HNKs0pTt90
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