A federal budget for hopeless optimists was delivered by the Morrison Government on 2 April 2019

https://youtu.be/C64ZC-0Oju4

This was Australian treasurer and Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg delivering his first budget speech on 2 April 2019:

Tonight, I announce that the budget is back in the black and Australia is back on track.

For the first time in 12 years, our nation is again paying its own way….

John Howard and Peter Costello paid off Labor’s debt. And tonight the Morrison government sets a path to do it again, without increasing taxes.

This matters because over the last year the interest bill on the national debt was $18bn.

And this was in a low interest rate environment.

This is money that could have built 500 schools or a world-class hospital in each state and territory.

We are reducing the debt and this interest bill.

Not through higher taxes, but by responsible budget management and by growing the economy.

In the actual budget papers he asserts that:

Net debt in 2019-20 is expected to be $361 billion, representing 18 per cent of GDP. By 2022-23, net debt is expected to decline to $326.1 billion (14.4 per cent of GDP). Net debt is then projected to be eliminated over the medium term (2029-30)

So whose debt is Frydenberg complaing about and why is the economic furture so suddenly rosy?

At the end of the month in 2013 in which Tony Abbott became Prime Minister of Australia the gross national debt stood at est. $220.67 billion and net national debt was $174.55 billion. At the time net national debt was in the vicinity of 13% of GDP.

By 2 April 2019 the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government had raised the gross national debt to $534.42 billion. 

That's more than double the national debt left by the previous Labor federal government.

Frydenberg is predicting that gross national will rise to $627.26 billion by end of June 2019 with net national debt coming in at $373.47 billion and net debt predicted to come in at 19.2% of GDP by end of June. 

By 30 June the federal government will have paid $18.15 billion in interest on this debt in the 2018-19 financial year.

I don't know about anyone else but to me it definitely looks as though the Liberal-Nationals Coalition governments have well and truly contribted to the national debt in the last five and a haf years.

According to the 2019-20 Budget that Frydenberg just delivered gross national debt is expected to rise for the next three financial years while at the same time it is hoped that net national debt will decrease.

When it comes to national debt a net decrease in the debt does not always mean the actual government debt is falling - it simply means that the government of the day expects to have enough assets and income to honour the total debt if the entire amount was theoretically called in by the debtors.

However, Frydenberg predicts that both net national debt and interest that the gross debt attracts will fall over the next four financial years, despite federal government expenses increasing and expected tax receipts (including GST receipts) being revised down by $26 billion over those same four years.

Frydenberg also says the Morrison Government will deliver an underlying cash balance of $7.1 billion by 30 June next year even though that underlying cash balance is $4.1 billion in deficit this year. To do that the Treasurer has to pull $11.2 billion out of his back pocket in the next fourteen months.

Months in which it is committed to delivering the cash splash it has included in this pre-election budget.

An ordinary voter like myself has to ask: Where's the money coming from to supposedly get the government books back into the black?

The Morrison Government must be privately asking itself the same question as Budget Statement 7 only gives that government a 70 per cent chance of being able to bring in a $7.1 billion suplus this coming financial year

Budget 2019-20 papers can be found here.

NOTE:

Only one item in the Morrison Government 2019-20 budget is likely to be passed on 3 April 2019 before the Australian Parliament is dissolved to meet the required timeline to issue  writs for the federal election. This means that all the budget promises made by Frydenberg are on the never never and if the Coalition Government wins that election it may change some budget details come 30 June.