Forget waffle about 10 year plans. Labor’s record is spend, spend and spend.

Wayne Swan added $240 million to our deficit. 

So what is a deficit? A deficit reflects the government spending more than it collects.

Therefore, the government borrows money to pay its bills.

Germany can borrow money at 1 per cent interest. Australia is edging closer to losing our AAA rating, so we are paying 2 per cent. That’s compound interest - 2 per cent each year, plus 2 per cent on the accumulated interest. 

Some economists estimate that within 10 years Australia will be paying more in interest than we spend on the age pension, unless we reduce the deficit.

Greece is paying 9 per cent, so any money they borrow will still be incurring interest and payments when today’s 18-year-old voters are pensioners.

The price for repeated deficits is poverty, as Greece has found out.

If we are borrowing money to pay for government services like social security payments, it is like the family that spends the credit card to buy groceries.

When the card is full, they still have to pay that debt, but how do they eat?

I won’t be paying for Labor’s promises. My working days are over, and I no longer pay income tax. My super these days seems to be spent on fresh food and medical costs, so I don’t contribute much GST either. 

The top effective personal tax rate is predicted to be 49 per cent, much like I was paying under Paul Keating. “Bracket creep” ensured that my humble wages drifted into the top bracket.

Shorten’s deficit promises, plus at least two per cent, will be compounding each year. This is how Greece got to be where it is, with wonderful government spending, benefits for all, but when the deficit could no longer be serviced, Greece hit the wall.

Add to Greece’s problems the avalanche of boat people, landing in Greece as their first port of call in Europe. Greece’s welfare and hospital systems that were already straining to service the Greek population, now have to also support the refugees.

Will Australia become like Greece if Bill Shorten is elected? The 50 Labor members or candidates who support letting boat people in have seen what is happening in Greece, and across Europe. The cost to the budget was $10.3 billion after Rudd relaxed refugee policy, but would a Labor/Greens government heed this lesson? 

Borrowed (deficit) money is paying for Gonski spending on Education and the NDIS, both unfunded Gillard-Rudd Labor programs. Once spent, the money is gone. Shorten’s renewables’ commitment will raise electricity prices and cost jobs. 

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, former Labor National President, Warren Mundine, said of his new great-grand-daughter, that when she grows up, “she’ll have to pay much higher taxes than any of us today could imagine, or she’ll receive fewer government services, and benefits, or both,” adding, “she and her peers will have to pay the debt accrued from massive government spending …”

It is young Australians like Mundine’s great-grand daughter who will still be paying for Bill Shorten’s promises long after I have passed on!

Future governments will have less to spend on today’s young voters, because they will be paying-off today’s deficits. Can we risk a Labor/Greens government?