Federal Debt (% GDP) — methodology
Category: Government & Fiscal · Unit: % of GDP · Published quarterly
What this metric measures
Federal government gross debt as a proportion of the total economy.
Why it matters: Measuring debt relative to GDP shows affordability. A growing economy can sustain more debt.
Source & provenance
- Publisher
- ABS
- Update frequency
- quarterly
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
How the score is computed
The score is a 0–100 normalisation of the latest observation, compared to a baseline window. The traffic-light rating (RAG) reflects both the absolute level and the recent trend.
- Direction
- Lower is better
- Trend window
- 60 months
- Baseline
- Last 10 years
Thresholds:
{
"red_min_pct_of_baseline": 110,
"amber_max_pct_of_baseline": 110,
"green_max_pct_of_baseline": 95
}See related corrections at /corrections, or the live data and chart at https://www.australiametrics.org/metric/federal-debt-pct-gdp.