Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry
Global ratings agency Fitch has reaffirmed Australia’s triple‑A credit rating.
This is another powerful endorsement of Labor’s responsible economic management.
We’ve made a lot of progress together on the economy and that progress has been acknowledged by the big ratings agencies.
It shows that under the Albanese Government, Australia has one of the best budgets in the G20.
In its latest report, Fitch acknowledged the government’s efforts in paying down Liberal debt, praised the government’s focus on boosting productivity and outlined the private sector recovery that was under way in Australia’s economy.
“Consumption will continue driving the recovery on the back of a still strong labour market and a steady improvement in real household incomes resulting from lower inflation, tax cuts, and declining debt service payments,” Fitch said.
“The government appears focused on productivity reforms after its re‑election in May 2025…
“Australia is likely to benefit from a larger role in critical mineral global supply chains, as signalled by its recent rare earths agreement with the US…”
We’ve turned two big Liberal deficits into two substantial Labor surpluses in our first two years, significantly reduced the deficit in our third year, and continued to pay down debt.
The Budget is $209 billion better over the three years to 2024–25 than the one we inherited.
Added together, our three Final Budget Outcomes have delivered a cumulative underlying cash balance of +$28 billion, compared with the more than −$181 billion we inherited.
The better fiscal position means gross debt in 2024–25 was $188 billion lower than the one left to us, avoiding over $60 billion in interest costs over the 11 years to 2032–33.
The budget is in much better nick because we’ve paid down almost $200 billion of Liberal debt, demonstrated spending restraint, overseen the creation of more than 1.1 million jobs and got real wages growing again.
While we’ve delivered a substantial budget improvement, we recognise that structural pressures are intensifying rather than easing and that’s why we’re taking decisive action to address some of the biggest spending pressures on the budget.
We’re delivering substantial reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and aged care system, and we’re paying down Liberal debt which is saving us tens of billions of dollars in interest payments.
Australia is one of only nine countries to be rated AAA by all three major credit rating agencies and this was achieved for the first time under the last Labor government.
We are realistic about the challenges facing our economy including growing global uncertainty, but our AAA rating is further proof Australia is coming at these challenges from a position of genuine economic strength.
We’ve made real progress on productivity reform since our Roundtable in August and we’ll continue to do what we can to clean up the budget mess we inherited from the Coalition and to make our economy more productive and resilient.