Australia's growing debt isn't as scary as our inability to deal with it
The Intergenerational Report tells us what we already know — the debt bill is rising and our politicians don't want to talk about tax reform.
Australia's debt mountain is growing. But this isn’t the scariest revelation in the 296-page Intergenerational Report published on Thursday. What's more alarming is the lack of political will to deal with it.
The report predicts the public purse will get squeezed in every direction over the next 40 years, with combined spending on health, aged care, the NDIS, defence and interest on debt rising from one third to one half of total government spending.
The vast majority of people will not accept cutting back spending in any of these areas (except for interest, but you can't reduce that without cutting elsewhere).
Most economists agree the only solution is to improve the tax system. But the IGR report mentions “tax reform” just once.
