The Treasury building in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 8, 2024. Melanie Sun/The Epoch Times
Australia’s national debt briefly hit the $1 trillion mark for the first time in history on Aug. 20 following the issuance of a new batch of bonds.
On Aug. 14, records from the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) showed a baseline gross debt of $983.7 billion.
This total climbed after the government issued $4.1 billion of bonds for bidding on Aug. 20 between 10:15 a.m. and 11 a.m.
On top of this, the office issued $13 billion in new treasury bonds via a bank-managed syndication on Aug. 18.
Combined, this takes the total debt to about $1.008 trillion.
However, Australia’s debt will dip back below the $1 trillion mark on Aug. 21 when $6 billion of notes mature, reducing total debt to $994.8 billion ahead of the AOFM’s weekly website update.
Bonds are official loans from institutional investors that help fund government debt.
Liberal Shadow Minister Tim Wilson said in coming weeks, extra debt would be issued, pushing the total back above $1 trillion.
“Today’s debt is tomorrow’s taxes, and the debt the Albanese government is racking up is being spent as fuel for inflation, making the damage so much greater,” Wilson said.
Wilson outlined how the debt is eroding the real wages of Australian workers and making living costs more expensive.
“This debt has a $30 billion interest bill every year. Without it, it would mean about a $2,000 tax cut of every Australian taxpayer,” he added.
“This government has been the beneficiary of around $400 billion in windfall revenues. Instead of using that money to pay off the debt, Jim Chalmers has used it to stoke inflation through excessive spending that is making Australians poorer.”
However, Treasurer Jim Chalmers defended the government’s record on Aug. 20. He claimed under the Coalition, gross debt would be higher.
“No amount of hyperventilating from the Liberal Party today will change the fact that debt is $200 billion lower this year than what they left us,” he told reporters in Canberra.
“If the Coalition had been in power today, gross debt this year would already be approaching $1.2 trillion.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the Treasury Department for comment.
