Pitt dismisses debt bill
TREASURER Curtis Pitt has dismissed the state’s projected $81 billion debt bill as a “magical or mythical” figure that Queenslanders should ignore.
Mr Pitt said the projected figure, which has been targeted by the LNP, was misleading while he spruiked a $2.8 billion final operating surplus for the 2016-17 Budget. He insisted the more appropriate measure was government sector debt, which excluded borrowings of government-owned corporations.
“The metric has always been that general government sector debt – that is the debt that we as Queensland taxpayers all pay, not the debt for non financial corporations including our GOCs,” he said. “They keep talking about this magical or mythical $80 billion debt.”