KAJ: "How did they get money?
They sold the gold and the money generating GBE Telstra.
Then set in place tax cuts that are now causing deficit."
The Coalition needed some money because they took over from the ALP a net Government debt of $96 billion in June 1996.However the Coalition left Labor with a $20 billion surplus and no net debt.
Gold sales:-
THE Reserve Bank sold most of the nation's gold reserves more than a decade ago because the board believed its price would remain flat
Telstra sale
Beazley deliberately refrained from pledging to reverse the Telstra privatisation if Labor gained office. He has been at pains to remind corporate circles that it was a Labor government that pioneered the free market agenda—including the privatisation of major enterprises, such as Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. Labor laid the basis for the current sell-off of Telstra by initiating its transformation into a profit-making company.
Similarly, the CEPU—the main communications union—had accommodated itself to the sale of Telstra and abandoned even the pretence of an industrial and political campaign to oppose it
Tax cuts
"personal income tax cuts put in place since 2003 were responsible for two-thirds of the decline in structural tax receipts over the past decade. The tax cuts began under the Howard government and were continued by Labor when Mr Swan and former prime minister Kevin Rudd decided in the 2007 election campaign to adopt more than $30bn in tax cuts announced by treasurer Peter Costello.
However the Coalition left Labor with a $20 billion surplus and no net debt.
