In August 1930, Scullin invited Sir Otto Niemeyer of the Bank of England to come to Australia to advise on economic policy. Niemeyer met with Federal and State leaders at a conference in Melbourne where he recommended a traditional deflationary response of balanced budgets to combat Australia's high levels of debt and insisted that interest on loans be met. It entailed the balancing of the budget through expenditure and wage cuts, without additional overseas borrowing, necessitating reductions in social welfare programs, defence spending and other sweeping cutbacks. The Premiers and Prime Minister Scullin agreed to this "Melbourne Plan", which would go on to form the basis of the Premiers' Plan. Ted Theodore, Treasurer in Scullin's Government, supported an "inflationary" policy of increased government spending in times of a recession, a view espoused in 1936 by John Maynard Keynes. The Senate and Commonwealth Bank (then also acting as the country's central bank) rejected Theodore's spending plans. The Labor Premier of New South Wales meanwhile announced the Lang Plan in February 1931, which included a temporary cessation of interest repayments on debts to Britain and that interest on all government borrowings be reduced to 3% to free up money for injection into the economy.