Hon. Dr Jim Chalmers MP - Press Conference
28 September 2026
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Press Conferences Australian Parliament
08:05 - 10:40
Speaker 1
The final budget outcome that we're releasing today shows that the deficit came in $6 billion better than expected, and debt was $10.6 billion lower at the end of the financial year. We have made a lot of progress in the budget and we've made more progress since then, but we know that there is more work to do. The bottom line is better than we inherited, better than it was at the election, and better than it was forecast to be in May. It is now around half the deficit for the year just finished compared to when we came to office. It now means that the aggregate improvement to the budget in our time in office is $230 billion better when it comes to the underlying cash balance, and there is $197 billion less debt.
Now, if you look at the improvement in the budget since the budget was handed down in May, payments are down $1.4 billion and receipts are up $4.6 billion. I want to be really clear that the improvement in receipts is not from commodities. In fact, mining profits came in lower than was anticipated. It's also not from wage earners. It is overwhelmingly from higher super and investor income than what we anticipated in the Treasury's forecasts in May.
So to be really clear about that, this is not about wage and salary earners, it's not about commodity prices, it's about higher than expected super and investor income, higher than was anticipated in the May budget. Mining profits actually came in lower than was expected. So that's, those are some important points of perspective. Responsible economic management is a defining feature of this government. You can see that in the way that we have made savings.
In fact, the last two budget updates had positive net policy decisions. You can see that in the way we've banked revisions. You can see that in the fact that we've limited spending where we could do that. Our responsible economic management has given us one of the strongest budgets in the G20. We have much, much lower debt to GDP than the major advanced economy, and this is precisely why the agencies have rated us AAA for budget management.
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