Reader Jeff, a seasoned political analyst, suggested that "I suspect the mob are very susceptible to a fear campaign about the level of government debt. That is the one problem for 07 with his package - the mob will like the package but worry about the debt."

In fact that doesn't appear to be the case at the moment. While our respondents are looking to pay-down their own debt levels, they are relaxed about government debt. This could be for a number of reasons.

First, they are not really sure what level of net debt the government has. Less than a third could accurately pick the figure closest to Australia's net debt level, which the government estimates to be -$16.2 billion for this financial year (that is a cash surplus).

Coincidentally, a similar number was also concerned about net debt, but the majority (54%) were unconcerned, and 16% were neither concerned nor unconcerned.

And most saw no connection between government debt and their own personal economic plans.

As noted in our last post, Australians would pay back their personal debt if they had a cash surplus. These tables give some more detail on that.

Privately our respondents are very contractionary. Only 9% are thinking of increasing their mortgage, while 67% are likely to pay it back.

On credit cards they are even more cautious with 79% likely to reduce and only 2% contemplating a spending spree.

11% said they did not have a credit card. Of the balance, 75% said they tried to pay their credit card bill entirely each month.

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