"New numbers we just released show that gross debt came in $10.6 billion lower at the end of the last Financial Year. Labor: Responsible economic management is a defining feature of this Albanese Labor Government." Please critque both claims.
The quote is Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ line from the 28 September 2026 Final Budget Outcome (FBO) for 2025–26. Both sentences are politically useful. Only one is a clean fact, and even that one is incomplete. **Claim 1: “Gross debt came in $10.6 billion lower at the end of the last Financial Year.”** This is true *only* as a comparison with the government’s own May 2026 Budget estimate. It is not true as a description of what happened to debt. The FBO numbers: - Gross debt at 30 June 2026: **$971.4 billion** (33.2% of GDP) - Estimate in the 2026–27 Budget: **$982.0 billion** - Difference: **$10.6 billion** Treasury itself says that reduction was “broadly in line with the improvement in the fiscal position” and came from issuing fewer Treasury Notes than planned. The underlying cash deficit was $22.3 billion, $6 billion better than the $28.3 billion Budget estimate. What the sentence leaves out: - **Debt rose, not fell, over the year.** End-2024–25 gross debt was $928.6 billion. It i...