Thank you.
We've heard a lot here today. Following on my colleague Mr. Blaikie's comments about the lack of definition for clarity about what we actually are going to be dealing with going forward here, I'll say that clarity is required for the definition of the money we're going to be spending here. Surely there's a financial model that's predicated on some real definitions of how this money will be spent and under what circumstances. If we don't even know what those circumstances are in retrospect, and if they apply, then clearly this modelling is somewhat suspect.
I'm going to make some excuses for the Finance officials here, because I know that you arrived late and were briefed on this late to be able to appear here today. That's a result of this bill's being jammed too late into a process that's going to take a bunch of time here right at the end of the year.
However, there was a time when the Department of Finance, in drafting a bill like this, starting in the mid-1990s, was rather good at making sure that this modelling was clear. This modelling is no longer clear. I don't know if it's because things have been lax during COVID, but this is something that you need to get right for the country, so I do have some questions around the financial modelling and the expectations, because here we've heard that $7 billion might be the amount we spend, depending on the definitions, through to May, but then it might go through until July.
This is just a blank chequebook, and I know the government has had a blank chequebook for far too long. This has to change, and this has to change in the Department of Finance in particular, because they're advising the minister.
I know there are a lot of moving parts. Let me ask a question about the debt-to-GDP ratio, because with the amount of spending this government has taken on, they've ramped up the debt-to-GDP ratio to 54% and are going to manage it down to 51% over the next handful of decades and keep it there. Have you factored these numbers into that debt-to-GDP ratio? I know that there are a lot of moving parts. Is this even a consideration?
I hear silence.