Shayne Neumann voted moderately against increasing or removing the Government debt limit

The majority voted in favour of a motion that the requested amendment be made.

The request for an amendment came from the Greens Party in the Senate. Since this motion was successful, the House will now vote on whether to accept the two Greens further amendments.(See that division here. )

Background to Bill

On 22 October 2013, the Abbott Government announced that it will raise the debt ceiling from $300 billion to $500 billion.(Read more about this in the media here. ) This was following the August 2013 Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook which reported that the Treasurer's standing borrowing authority would reach the $300 billion limit by December 2013.

The purpose of the increase to the debt ceiling is to "provide stability and certainty to financial markets about the Government's ability to issue sufficient debt to manage its budget".(See the explanatory memorandum (106 KB). More about the bill, including its bills digest, is available here.)

The majority voted in favour of a motion to disagree with an amendment that would change the proposed rise in the debt ceiling from $500 billion to $400 billion instead.

Someone who voted aye to the motion disagreed with the amendment. The majority voted aye, so the amendment was unsuccessful.

This amendment was attached to the bill when it was returned from the Senate. The majority of senators had agreed with the amendment.(See the division in which the senators agreed to this amendment here. ) Since it has been rejected in the House of Representatives, the bill will be returned to the Senate and they will decide whether they will insist on the amendment or not. If they do, it is likely that the bill will fail unless a compromise is found. If they do not insist on it, then it is likely the bill will be passed with an increased debt ceiling of $500 billion.

Background to Bill

On 22 October 2013, the Abbott Government announced that it will raise the debt ceiling from $300 billion to $500 billion.(Read more about this in the media here. ) This was following the August 2013 Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook which reported that the Treasurer's standing borrowing authority would reach the $300 billion limit by December 2013.

The purpose of the increase to the debt ceiling is to "provide stability and certainty to financial markets about the Government's ability to issue sufficient debt to manage its budget".(See the explanatory memorandum (106 KB). More about the bill, including its bills digest, is available here.)

The majority voted against an amendment to change the proposed rise in the debt ceiling from $500 billion to $400 billion instead. The amendment was introduced by Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen.

Someone who votes aye in this amendment supports changing the debt ceiling set by bill. The majority voted no to this amendment so it was unsuccessful.

Background to Bill

On 22 October 2013, the Abbott Government announced that it will raise the debt ceiling from $300 billion to $500 billion.(Read more about this here in the media here. ) This was following the August 2013 Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook which reported that the Treasurer's standing borrowing authority would reach the $300 billion limit by December 2013.

The purpose of the increase to the debt ceiling is to "provide stability and certainty to financial markets about the Government's ability to issue sufficient debt to manage its budget".(See the explanatory memorandum (106 KB). More about the bill, including its bills digest, is available here.)

The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a second time.

This means that the majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) agree with the main idea of the bill and will now decide whether to pass it in the House of Representatives, which subsequently occurred without division.(See Open Australia for this vote. )

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced to amend the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Act 1911 so that the Treasurer is authorised to increase the cap on the face value of Commonwealth Government Securities on issue by $125 billion in special circumstances.(Read more about the bill here, including its explanatory memorandum and bills digest.) Prior to this, there was a debt limit of $75 billion, which had been introduced by the Commonwealth Securities and Investment Legislation Amendment Act 2008.

References