
This Appendix provides financial tables based on applicable Australian Accounting Standards (AAS), including AAS 31 Financial Reporting by Governments, except where departures from the standards are identified in Note 1.
A reconciliation between the Australian Government’s general government AAS financial statements and Government Finance Statistics (GFS) revenue, expenses and operating results is provided in Appendix B.
Table C1: Statement of financial performance for the Australian Government general government sector — AAS
Table C2: Statement of financial position for the Australian Government general government sector as at 30 June — AAS
- For 2004‑05 and the forward years, transactions relating to debt management activities in Financial assets – investments and Debt – government securities have been netted. This treatment has been applied because of the uncertainty associated with the actual split between government securities and financial assets acquired for debt management purposes.
- Heritage and cultural assets were previously included in infrastructure.
- Debt includes interest-bearing and non-interest bearing debt.
Table C3: Statement of cash flows for the Australian Government general government sector — AAS
Notes to the Financial Statements
Note 1: External reporting standards and accounting policies
The Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998 requires that the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PEFO) be based on external reporting standards and that departures from applicable external reporting standards be identified.
The financial statements included in this Appendix have been prepared on an accrual basis in accordance with current applicable Australian Accounting Standards (AAS), including AAS 31 Financial Reporting by Governments, except as noted below. AAS will change from 2005-06, with the introduction of Australian Equivalents to the International Financial Reporting Standards released in July 2004. Given the timing of the release, the financial statements in this Appendix are prepared on the same basis as the 2004‑05 Budget and not in accordance with the Australian Equivalents to the International Financial Reporting Standards.
AAS requires governments to prepare accrual-based general-purpose financial reports. This means that assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses are recorded in financial statements when transactions have an economic impact on the government, rather than when the cash flow associated with these transactions occurs. Consistent with AAS, a statement of financial performance, a statement of financial position and a statement of cash flows have been prepared for the current financial year and the three following financial years.
The accounting policies in this Appendix are generally consistent with the requirements of AAS. While the scope for financial reporting recommended in AAS 31 is the whole of government (that is, the Australian Government public sector), in accordance with the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998, the PEFO presentation covers the general government sector only. This publication does not include full note disclosures.
AAS would suggest the gross amount of goods and services tax (GST) be included in the Australian Government’s financial statements. However, consistent with the presentation adopted by the Government in the Budget, the PEFO AAS tables do not include GST collections and equivalent payments to the states and territories, which is a departure from AAS. Estimates of GST receipts are provided in Table B5 of Appendix B.