The Australian Financial Review‘s Economics correspondent Michael Read has an article about the increasing propensity of Federal Governments of both political persuasions to obscure on-going spending in a category officially termed ‘investments in financial assets for policy purposes’, which in the Federal Budget Papers is the difference between the ‘headline’ budget balance – which despite the name typically doesn’t attract headlines – and the ‘underlying’ budget balance – which since the concept was first introduced by then Treasurer Peter Costello in the 1996-97 Budget has been the most commonly used measure of the Budget’s ‘bottom line’. As Michael reports, I’m inclined to revert to regarding the ‘headline’ balance as ‘the’ measure of the ‘bottom line’.

Michael’s article is here: https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/inside-canberra-s-hidden-180b-spending-boom-20241107-p5kor1.