Queensland government accounting manipulations

Comments on Fabrizio Carmignani "Reducing debt without austerity: Queensland govt strikes fair compromise" 15/07/2015

From what you described, it is purely accounting manipulations and tricks that produce the outcome. If my understanding is correct, accrue accounting as opposed to cash accounting, is a better approach to reflect the real costs (and revenue for that matter) of government activities. It seems that the QLD government is relying retreating to the cash accounting to present a good look but a worse accounting performance by the accrue accounting standard, if my understanding of the author is correct.

The debt shifting to corporations, while still tricky, may be acceptable if those debts are really belonging to those corporations. That makes the QLD government's book look better, but it does not change much in terms of QLD's public debts. It is only a separation of state owned corporations from the government and an accounting shift.

It is interesting that the author applaud to QLD government's accounting manipulations as "strikes fair compromise".

This kind of behaviour from government should not win praises as a matter of standard, particularly from an academia.