Australian State Budgets Serve Up More Debt From the Menu
Queues stretched around the block at a Centrelink office in Melbourne on March 23, 2020 as thousands of Australians lost their job due to the forced closure of Café, restaurants, pubs, casinos and gyms. William WEST / AFP via Getty Images
The dramatic transformation of Australia’s fiscal landscape by the COVID-19 pandemic has been confirmed by the latest round of state and territory budgets for New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), Queensland (QLD), South Australia (SA) and the Northern Territory (NT). Their collective shares of GDP cover some 85 percent of the national economy.
Robert Carling
Author
Economist Robert Carling is a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia. He was executive director at the New South Wales Treasury from 1998 to 2006, and has held positions with the Commonwealth Treasury, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
