Ian Verrender

Well, they've got to get the money to be able to lend it out.

It's one way they do it.

Yeah, I think the Treasurer is acutely aware of it.

And I mean, look, in principle, you want to have the government and the Reserve Bank, you know, in lockstep.

working hand in hand.

You don't want a big spending government out there with a major expansionary budget while the Reserve Bank's trying to raise interest rates to slow the economy down.

Now, you know, there's been a long campaign from sections of the media that the government is a big spending government.

And government spending is the highest on record, apart from the times when it was higher, right?

So they...

Look out, you know, forget those times.

It's the highest on record, you know, if you don't count the times when it was the highest on record.

So I think it's better to look at the trend in government spending.

And the trend clearly has been coming down for the past 12 months.

And there have been, you know, clearly quite, you know,

concerned efforts to try and reduce government spending and to bring the budget back into some kind of surplus.

A lot of the surplus was blown out by the tax cuts, the stage three tax cuts.

We basically gave a lot of money back into the economy.

Government spending as a proportion of GDP is elevated.

There's no doubt about that, but it is being ratcheted back.

And it's that trend that you've really got to look at.