*This post follows on from my recent article, “Labor: Hide The Increase”. There, I showed that the Rudd Government has fiddled the books to hide their massive increase in borrowing and spending. Please read the article for background to this new article.
In the fine print on the Rudd Government’s Budget 2009-10 MYEFO website, we learned that Rudd Labor made a change in the accounting method that was previously used to calculate Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This change resulted in a “substantial increase” to the official GDP figures:
* The 2008-09 Annual National Accounts show a substantial increase in the level of GDP over history due to the ABS adopting the new System of National Accounts 2008. Given the degree of increase in the level of nominal GDP, the Government has released updated tables of fiscal aggregates contained within Appendix D of the 2009-10 MYEFO.
So just how much is that “substantial increase”?
4.5%. Or $47bn. In just one year.
Here’s a chart I’ve put together from the official Australian Government Budget data. It shows my reverse calculation* of the value (in $millions) of Rudd Labor’s “revisions” to historic GDP.
That is, it shows just how much the Rudd government has simply tacked on to the previously-reported official GDP figures (click to enlarge):
Rudd Labor "revisions" to past GDP figures
This chart only goes up to 2006-07. The last year of a Coalition government Budget report.
That is because the Rudd government has gone back and “revised” the figures in the Rudd Labor 2007-08 and 2008-09 Final Budget Outcome documents too. So I could not find the original reported figures for those years in order to calculate the GDP, and compare to their newly “revised” figures.
Even so, you can easily see that Rudd Labor’s “revisions” to past GDP are indeed, a “substantial increase”. For the 2006-07 year – the last year that I am able to compare original vs “revised” figures – it appears that they have adjusted GDP upwards by $47 billion (4.49%) over the original figures reported by the Howard Government.
Of course, we can easily perceive just why Rudd Labor would wish to do this….
Barnaby Is Right 
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