Debt warnings should be heeded

France's Prime MinisterJean-Marc Ayrault said the increase in public debt to 91 per cent of gross domestic product is "unsustainable".

He warned that, "We have to break with this spiral of ever increasing debt. If we don't say stop now, our taxpayers will just go on paying indefinitely purely to meet the interest payments."

This is remarkably similar to warnings from former head of the Australian Future Fund and former Commonwealth Bank CEO David Murray, who recently said that, "To keep providing more Government entitlement that is debt funded, is not very smart, and it is the track that Europe has been down. The whole point about leadership at Government level, business level, family, anywhere, is to get a grasp on reality - that is what Europe has not been doing."

Mr Murray rejected the argument of the current federal government that Australia had nothing to worry about because government debt was relatively low compared to the crisis-stricken nations of Europe.

"The risk is about the shape of the Australian economy, not the shape of somebody else's economy. The other risk is that we're talking about a measurement for Australia and comparing it with measurements for other countries that are severely bad. So, we are comparing 20-30 per cent of GDP in Government debt with countries that have 50-100. But 100 per cent is a ridiculous number. It shouldn't even go close to that, ever," he said.

Australia has experienced the fastest and largest descent into debt in our history under Treasurer Wayne Swan and Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The Coalition has been warning for some time that the government had to stop its wasteful spending and to put the national finances on a sustainable footing.

Unfortunately this year's Budget and the just released MYEFO included contortions and manipulations that would never have been allowed by a private sector company reporting its finances.

That will inspire little confidence in the Labor government's ability to get spending and debt under control.

The task of restoring the national finances will fall once again on the shoulders of the next Coalition government and that task becomes more difficult with each passing day.