I appreciate your comments, but we have had a Lib coalition Government that up to now believed in Neo-Liberal philosophy: -low taxes, small government & minimal government interference in the so called 'free market"
The drought, fires , covid & Chinese trade sanctions have changed all that!
In our Federal System, the Commonwealth has chief responsibility to levy taxes (unlike the USA where States have more tax latitude) and the states have responsibility of delivering services such as health, education, policing & infrastructure.
In real terms , The Commonwealth has cut back States' grants & financing requiring all the states to increase budget deficits )and by implication increase State debt) in order to finance the delivery of services and infrastructure.
The fair way to look at Australian debt is to look at the taxpayers' liabilities which is the total Comm + State + Muni Debt That's the fiar Aussie thing to do.
Here is our total national debt which, by the way, is 350%of our GDP and we are all responsible for that.
If we hit the Recession that the experts expect, then we may have to call on the IMF & Uncle Sam to bail us out and in doing so, like Ireland, Greece in the GFC, be deprived of our soverignty in the process which will make quibbling about one States debt vs another silly.
Our Household debt is by far the biggest soverign economic threat and the vast majority of Aussies have skin in that!
