I wasn't implying you were. OK. Back to politics? What happened to the budget emergency? Haven't heard about that for a while. Maybe there wasn't one, just as the economists were saying.
The definition of "budget emergency" depends very much on which side of the political fence you come from.
Labor was apparently quite happy to keep racking up debt, justifying it on the basis that they had achieved a Triple A rating and our total debt was comparatively low against our major trading partners. They had increased our debt limit a number of times to accommodate our increasing debt and we were already approaching their latest limit ($300M) without any real sign of the debt abating , unemployment was on the rise again, our interest rates had fallen to a level previously declared by Swann to be "emergency levels" (or somesuch, I can't recall his exact definition but you get the point), but they were now crowing that the low rates were a legacy of good financial management. The Reserve Bank, on the other hand, indicated that the low rate was intended to stimulate a stagnant economy which was also a legacy of their financial management and had said that the rate of Government borrowing was becoming a major concern. Economists made the point that, not long ago, some of our major trading partners were in a similar position to where we are now and they were deeply in trouble with massive debt. Comparisons between our economy with 22 million odd people and the USA with over 300 million might look good on paper but there is no comparison in the size of the two economies so using the US, Germany, Italy, Spain etc really didn't hold much water. Nonetheless, Labor kept using them as comparators.
The Conservative side of politics doesn't like or agree with growing debt, particularly when it reaches the level it has in such a short time. The GFC has been and for the most part, gone and economies are gradually recovering, though some remain chronic. Using the GFC as the reason for so much spending became trite and the public knew it. The rate at which the debt was growing, Labor's "she'll be right" attitude and their apparent indifference to the real reasons behind falling interest rates, growing unemployment, costs of living and a number of political failures such as asylum seekers, which were doing their bit to blow out economic forecasts as well, caused more concern on the conservative side of politics than on Labor's. The definition "budgetary emergency" might seem like extremism, but from our side, that's what it was. The Coalition is now undertaking measures to rein in the budget, cut waste as Jester states, abolish multiple bullshit departments and agencies and re-focus the budget on the infrastructure and programs that they believe are vital to the country.
They mightn't be using the term "budgetary emergency" now, but it's still a very real issue to conservatives.
We know what it means but trying to make it sound Latin is both trying to make it sound important at the same time as making it sound profound and in reality it's just kinda cute. Not paying out in any great way, we all use similar things, ideas, sayings..
