The last time that the government spent less than it received and so achieved the “happiness” result was back in the 2007/08 fiscal year. Since then, we’ve racked up 15 consecutive years of a “misery” result. Ahead of this year’s National Budget there were expectations that government revenue would overrun initial estimates and reduce the budget deficit estimate of 4.9% of GDP as presented in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (“MTBPS”) in October. The peak level of sovereign debt that was forecast in the MTBPS at 71.4% of GDP was, however, expected to be moderately worse than that estimate.

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