TREASURY secretary Ken Henry has accused opposition finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce of grossly over-simplifying economics, in a fresh blow to the controversial senator's attempts to prove he is up to his job.
With Opposition Leader Tony Abbott under pressure to move him to another portfolio, Senator Joyce asked Dr Henry at a Senate committee hearing whether it was fair to say that if we kept borrowing and debt kept getting larger, this would put upward pressure on interest rates.
''That is a gross over-simplification of economic understanding of these matters,'' Dr Henry said.
He drew Senator Joyce's attention to the early years of this decade when ''as debt was being repaid, interest rates were steadily climbing''.
''So I think we should be … careful not to rush into simplistic relationships between levels of debt and interest rates.''
Senator Joyce has been under sustained attack from the government since he said on Tuesday that Australia was getting to the stage where it could not repay its debt.
Last week he mixed up his figures, and suffered another mental glitch yesterday, when talking about the ''$850 billion blow-outs in the solar panels, $400 billion blow-out in forward expenditure''.
He told Fairfax websites yesterday that if Mr Abbott asked him to leave the finance job, he would go.
''Absolutely,'' he said. ''This is a great honour, being in this building. It's a great honour doing this job but I wouldn't cry in my beer if I left. You know, I would really walk out the door and be a happy man and think I've done my bit for the country.''
Later he said: ''I am staying in finance. No one has suggested anything other than I stay in finance.''
He was not interested in moving to another portfolio - ''it's not on the agenda. It's like saying 'Are you interested in another wife' - how do you answer that?''
Senator Joyce said as shadow finance minister, ''I won't have a personality transplant but I've got to make sure that I won't crap on everybody else.''
Queensland Labor federal MP Graham Perrett was forced to apologise after comparing Senator Joyce to murderer Ivan Milat on Wednesday.
Mr Perrett told Parliament he was from St George, where Senator Joyce lives.
''I have written fiction about the town, but Senator Barnaby Joyce speaks fiction about the nation and he speaks fiction about the economy … Barnaby Joyce is doing to economic responsibility what Ivan Milat did to backpacker holidays.''
Mr Abbott continued to defend Senator Joyce. ''Every time the government goes over the top in its criticism of Barnaby Joyce it actually draws attention to the whole debt problem''.
He said Mr Rudd was showing a lack of proportion in talking about Senator Joyce while he stood by Environment Minister Peter Garrett. ''Barnaby Joyce has not been responsible for programs that have killed people.''
Mr Abbott said the government was reprehensible in the way it was mortgaging the future to fund a spending spree. It had spent too much too soon.
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