Your sums seem OK but I dunno about the initial premise. Who is paying 100mil a day in interest? The government? Industry? Everyone? Where did you get that number?

Like maxm I too had no idea what you were talking about, and as I was bored I googled it.

It sounds like a reference to Tony Abbott saying the government is SPENDING 100 million dollars a day. Very different to spending $100M a day on interest payments, if I am guessing the context correctly.

http://kochie.com.au/election-mythbuster-abbotts-interest-rate-drop

Why don't people understand that we just went through a Global Financial Crisis, and basic economics means we have to spend our way out of it?

Talk to people in the rest of the world and see if the GFC has or is affecting them? I think we have come out of this pretty rosey. So good in fact that most people think 'we' didn't need to do anything, or indeed what we did do had no effect...

Would you prefer to pay more tax in the future to pay off this debt, or not have a job and not have to pay tax?

FormulaNova said...



Would you prefer to pay more tax in the future to pay off this debt, or not have a job and not have to pay tax?

Not having a job and not paying tax sounds quite attractive but only if I had a source of income from somewhere. Oh why don't I have any rich bachelor uncles or spinster aunts? Its just not fair!

The government borrows all this money. Why don't they just give everyone a million dollars? Russel Crowe had this idea and it sounds pretty good.

If the government got rid of the army and lots of public services, plus sacking all the politicians then they wouldn't have to borrow as much to pay everyone their million dollars.

Mobydisc said...

If the government got rid of the army and lots of public services, plus sacking all the politicians then they wouldn't have to borrow as much to pay everyone their million dollars.

Costello and Co. did that already. They took money out of everywhere, including our pockets. Trouble is, they forgot to give us the million bucks.

evlPanda said...

Kochie said...
Interest rates are at normal level right now simply because our economy is solid and doing well. Unemployment is back around the 5% mark, inflation is within the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range and Government debt is around 6% of the value of the economy (think of that as having a mortgage of around 6% of the value of your house).

I quite hate Sunrise but Kochie himself is one of the most reasonable, intelligent people on Australian TV.

Your joking of course (you had me up til then) That Sunrise pumped up Judge Juror and executioner, should stick to financial and leave the rest to level headed people. Don’t get me started on his pompous rambles
I switched off 7 just for that reason alone.

Sorry if the first post didn't make sense ( good bottle of red will do that ) anyway hopefully I can clarify ....
It was /is my understanding that our debt (since the government spendathon ) is at such a level that our interest payments on said debt are equivalent to 100 million a day ( so if we pay off JUST 100 million a day for a year we still have the same debt at the end as it is only interest...... Now I'm not saying we should not have spent the money and agree to an extent it has cushioned the effect of the gfc.....BUT what amazes me is the 100 million per day...... And what prompted the original post was listening to both political parties announcing with great fanfare (and met with community gratitude) flagship policies that cost 2 -3 billion etc. 2 billion is just 20 days of interest..... So without the debt we can build the broadband network ~35 billion in 350 days reform mental health in 20 days, imagine each of our major hospitals getting given say 10 million dollars a day! Or every school getting several million a year ....

... I guess what I'm getting at is 100 million per day is a ship load and could be far better spent on infrastructure and services within the country rather than interest ... As such the main priority surely must be to reduce that debt as soon as possible.

i am strongly for an upgrade to internet speeds through an upgraded network, but i oppose a government being involved, it should be a private industry that bankroll such an endeavor that way they the shareholders as well as creditors take on the risk, with government its an open cheque book because every 3 to 4 years the public are dumb enough to forget costly mistakes (like this election) shareholders (people that loose money) are not so forgiving because it effects them straight up.

cost blow outs in the government sector are like a car panel beater industry costed quote, say its personal uninsured work and its way way cheaper than an insured job..

cwamit said...

i am strongly for an upgrade to internet speeds through an upgraded network, but i oppose a government being involved, it should be a private industry that bankroll such an endeavor that way they the shareholders as well as creditors take on the risk, with government its an open cheque book because every 3 to 4 years the public are dumb enough to forget costly mistakes (like this election) shareholders (people that loose money) are not so forgiving because it effects them straight up.

cost blow outs in the government sector are like a car panel beater industry costed quote, say its personal uninsured work and its way way cheaper than an insured job..

This is sort of around my industry, so from my perspective, you could never get something like this up and running from private enterprise. It is not necessarily going to make you money, and the benefit is not obvious. I don't want to argue if there is a benefit or not, but someone thinks there is.

If you tried to get this running with any of the Telcos, they would do what they have already and try and cherry-pick the users in the city where it is cheap to deliver bandwidth, and they would forget people in areas that are not as much of a profit spinner. They wouldn't upgrade the network, as there is no money in it.

Telcos are already trying to get rid of areas they don't want. Telstra has a huge amount of exchanges and equipment that they don't make enough profit from. If it wasn't for the fact the government and other Telcos subsidize this, they wouldn't bother keeping them open.

I am not sure about your analogy. I felt I was ripped off getting a cash job done at a panel beaters once. On a later insurance claim I was surprised how much the insurance companies screwed the panel beaters down on price.

harry potter said...

Sorry if the first post didn't make sense ( good bottle of red will do that ) anyway hopefully I can clarify ....
It was /is my understanding that our debt (since the government spendathon ) is at such a level that our interest payments on said debt are equivalent to 100 million a day ( so if we pay off JUST 100 million a day for a year we still have the same debt at the end as it is only interest......

I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but if this is to be believed, we will be back in surplus in a few years:

archive.budget.gov.au/index.htm

So whatever the spending, someone's going to be paying it back, and its us through taxes.

I do doubt the interest payments alone are $100M or more per day, but am happy to have someone clear that up for me.

cranky said...

FormulaNova said...


It is not necessarily going to make you money, and the benefit is not obvious. I don't want to argue if there is a benefit or not, but someone thinks there is.

Does anyone know who or what is behind this urgent push for high speed broadband?

I personally think its a lot of 'me too' where someone wants to show that we are a competitive globally focused country. I have heard for years about how cheap and fast internet was 'somewhere else'.

This is usually based on countries where the population density is very high and thus cheaper to deliver high speed services. We just don't have the same population density here.

On a positive side, I think fast broadband for remote schools is an absolutely fantastic idea. It makes it much less of a divide between being in remote areas versus cities.

FormulaNova said...

cranky said...

FormulaNova said...


It is not necessarily going to make you money, and the benefit is not obvious. I don't want to argue if there is a benefit or not, but someone thinks there is.

Does anyone know who or what is behind this urgent push for high speed broadband?

I personally think its a lot of 'me too' where someone wants to show that we are a competitive globally focused country. I have heard for years about how cheap and fast internet was 'somewhere else'.

This is usually based on countries where the population density is very high and thus cheaper to deliver high speed services. We just don't have the same population density here.

On a positive side, I think fast broadband for remote schools is an absolutely fantastic idea. It makes it much less of a divide between being in remote areas versus cities.

Read something a while ago and can't recall the exact figures (so I'll make some up to demostrate my point) but they showed out that internet speeds have gone from 5kbps to 100Mbps in 5 years at no cost to the tax payer, and the superfast broadband network now takes them to 101Mbps for $35 gazzilion over 6 years.

What ever the figures where they didn't really make it look like too much of a good idea.

Carantoc said...

Read something a while ago and can't recall the exact figures (so I'll make some up to demostrate my point) but they showed out that internet speeds have gone from 5kbps to 100Mbps in 5 years at no cost to the tax payer, and the superfast broadband network now takes them to 101Mbps for $35 gazzilion over 6 years.

What ever the figures where they didn't really make it look like too much of a good idea.

ADSL2 is about as good as it gets over existing copper wiring. 30Mbps if you virtually live at the exchange. Anything faster needs fiber, and that's where it gets expensive. The largest part of the cost is in the cost to dig up the street to run the fiber into houses. Do most of us need anything faster than 10Mbps, which is about the maximum you can get from ADSL2 at about 3 to 4kms from the exchange?

I think the thing that is ignored is that people have a price point they will pay and not go much higher. If you offer them 10 times the internet speed, they are not going to pay 10 times the amount, and if they are like me, they won't even want to pay any more at all. Not a very good business model for anyone.

I'm a bit of a skeptic for the need, but there will be hidden benefits that we may see turn up over the years. Just don't ask me to guess what they are.

FormulaNova said...

Carantoc said...

Read something a while ago and can't recall the exact figures (so I'll make some up to demostrate my point) but they showed out that internet speeds have gone from 5kbps to 100Mbps in 5 years at no cost to the tax payer, and the superfast broadband network now takes them to 101Mbps for $35 gazzilion over 6 years.

What ever the figures where they didn't really make it look like too much of a good idea.

ADSL2 is about as good as it gets over existing copper wiring. 30Mbps if you virtually live at the exchange. Anything faster needs fiber, and that's where it gets expensive. The largest part of the cost is in the cost to dig up the street to run the fiber into houses. Do most of us need anything faster than 10Mbps, which is about the maximum you can get from ADSL2 at about 3 to 4kms from the exchange?

I think the thing that is ignored is that people have a price point they will pay and not go much higher. If you offer them 10 times the internet speed, they are not going to pay 10 times the amount, and if they are like me, they won't even want to pay any more at all. Not a very good business model for anyone.

I'm a bit of a skeptic for the need, but there will be hidden benefits that we may see turn up over the years. Just don't ask me to guess what they are.

I guess the benefit is not in internet streamed into your home for domestic use but for business and things like finance and banks clearing interbank transfers, clearing stockmarkets and 1000s of things I probably don't comprehend like that.

Carantoc said...

FormulaNova said...

I know of at least one person that came back from Europe as they couldn't find any work, yet found work easily here.

And the fact that people just fly from europe to australia to look for a job doesn't really imply crisis to me.

Only two generations ago it took and altered your entire life to make such a transition.

The fact our standard of living has risen so high makes these things seem so large. Try telling some poor woman in Sudan who walks 4 hours a day to collect water that the GFC is on.

I know a bloke who was telling me that his mate was so affected by the GFC he had to sell his car, and now he only has one vehicle. Is that a crisis ?

Don't get me wrong I don't pine for the good old days, in fact I think the old days were ****house and long may my current opulent lifestyle last, I just hope that I am mildly humble about it and do recognise how good I have it compared to everyone else.

Yeah, yeah, we can all go live in mud huts. There is/was no GFC.

Carantoc said...


I guess the benefit is not in internet streamed into your home for domestic use but for business and things like finance and banks clearing interbank transfers, clearing stockmarkets and 1000s of things I probably don't comprehend like that.

Those businesses can usually get the amount of bandwidth they need now. As they are usually placed in CBDs, the Telcos jump over themselves to offer fast services. Providing bandwidth in the cities is cheap.

The areas it may help are those not so central places where there is currently only one supplier who has a monopoly and no business need to increase the bandwidth there.