There is politics with its usual play-acting and huffing and puffing, and then there's going a step too far. Joe Hockey has taken that step.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt, thought he couldn't be serious, suspected there was a careful use of weasel words to provide an out – but I checked and apparently the Treasurer means what he said: he'll throw a Tea Party on December 12 and slash government services when the existing $300 billion debt ceiling is reached unless the opposition gives him a $500 billion ceiling now. He won't accept the proffered $400 billion interim offer.

He told Parliament on Wednesday: “We will stare you down on this because the debt limit is being hit on the 12th of December and I want to know if the Labor Party thinks it is so heroic, so heroic, to go down the path of starting to close down government services because we may need to exceed that debt limit.”

And then there was ABC Radio on Thursday: “If Labor prevents an increase in the debt limit there is no choice but to start having massive cuts to government expenditure, because the government is running on borrowed money.”