Key Points

• The Coalition's 214 commitments would result in an improvement in the underlying cash, headline cash and fiscal balances by the end of the 2025‑26 Budget forward estimates, but would decrease the underlying cash, headline cash and fiscal balances over the medium term (2025‑26 to 2035‑36), relative to the Pre‑election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PEFO) baseline.
• The Coalition's platform would result in an improvement in the underlying cash balance of $6.6 billion over the forward estimates and a decrease of $135.6 billion over the medium term relative to PEFO.
• This would result in an underlying cash deficit of $27.5 billion at the end of the forward estimates and total underlying cash deficits of $145.0 billion and $462.6 billion over the forward estimates and medium-term periods respectively.
• This impact is driven by lower levels of payments and receipts over the forward estimates, with higher payments and lower receipts in the medium term. The increase in payments is principally in defence, while the decrease in receipts is mainly due to the unspecified tax cuts required to achieve the policy that taxation receipts not exceed 23.9% of gross domestic product (GDP).
• The Coalition's platform is estimated to result in lower government gross debt across most of the period, but $147.3 billion higher by the end of the medium term relative to PEFO, reaching $1.7 trillion (35.1% of GDP). Public debt interest payments are expected to be $21.6 billion lower over the medium term.
• The difference between the PBO's estimates of the budget impact of the Coalition's commitments over the forward estimates and those published by the Coalition prior to the election is less than 0.1% of GDP.