I read a lot of novels. It is a relief to get away from all those economic reports and commentary that I read during the day. But as the state budget season ends – the last two, New South Wales and Queensland, were handed down on 24 June – I began to wonder whether I was also reading fiction during the day as well.

Let’s be clear, the only budget figures that can be relied upon, and even then, with a grain of salt, are the past ones and the ones for the coming year. Any other figures that pertain to further out are essentially made up.

There are the forward estimates which cover a four-year period. More recently, it has become common practice, at least for the federal budget, to provide ten-year estimates of revenue and expenditure. These ten-year guesses are more supernatural than standard fiction.

Don’t get me wrong here, the forward estimates are potentially important because governments must be transparent about the cost of future spending commitments as well as projections of revenue.

The scope for fudging without a statement of future payments and revenue is immense. Even so, there is a great deal of room to manipulate the figures by making heroic, often hidden, assumptions.

Take the NSW budget as an example. The prediction is that there will be two years of budget deficits – the first one more than was expected during the mid-year review undertaken only six months previously – followed by two years of surpluses. But buried in the fine print is the assumption that annual expenses will grow at a mere two per cent on average over the forwards (that’s insider speak for the forward estimates), even though state government employee expenses grew by eight per cent in 2023 to 2024.

The point here is that it’s not going to be two per cent – enterprise bargains struck over the period are likely to contain annual wage increases of at least three to four per cent – and the Treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, probably knows this – or he should.

Having spent my time whipping through this year’s state budget papers, it occurred to me that I should be able to award a wooden spoon for the worst budget.

There’s no real point in handing over a premiership cup because Western Australia is in a class of its own because of its rivers of gold – OK, iron ore – that flow to the state’s coffers by dint of royalties.

Add in the egregious GST deal that then prime minister Scott Morrison negotiated with the sandgropers – and unsurprisingly continued by the Albanese government – and the scene is set for an easy fiscal ride. Even so, WA’s gross debt in 2028-29 is expected to reach $58 billion. It’s always tempting to put some items on the slate and call them state-building infrastructure.

But let me get back to the main game: which state deserves the bottom position on the fiscal league ladder? You might think that this would be an easy question to answer –Victoria, obviously. And, yes, that state is a strong contender; it has definitely been the cellar-dweller in the recent past.

Having massively overspent during Covid and embarked on a wildly extravagant Big Build program – ‘big build’ really stands for over budget and massively delayed – Victoria currently has a gross debt of $211 billion, rising to $274 billion in 2028-29.

The figures contained in its budget papers are highly misleading, expecting the Victorian economy to grow faster than the national economy and for the population also to grow at a higher rate. Take out these assumptions and the supposed fall in net government debt as a proportion of state output rapidly disappears.

But over the Bass Strait, in the island state of Tasmania, the budget there is the epitome of out-of-control spending and madcap capital spending plans. The place is the size of a handkerchief, and the total population is under half a million. But by the end of the decade, gross government debt will exceed $22 billion. And did I mention, the four budget deficits forecast in this year’s budget or that fact that this state is supposedly governed by the Liberal party?

What about New South Wales? Surely that state can’t be classified an easybeat? It wasn’t that long ago that Premier Mike Baird flogged off everything that wasn’t locked down and a few things that were, sending government net debt to zero.

Sadly, the combined fiscal mismanagement of the Perrottet and Minns governments means that NSW is a serious competitor for the wooden spoon. The current net government debt in our biggest state by population is $204 billion. In 2028-29, it is estimated to be $253 billion. Again, the principal explanation is over-budget infrastructure projects.

(I’ve excluded the territories from my comp, but the ACT is a real standout, even though it’s the size of a ten cent coin and should really be just a local government. At the end of the decade, government debt in the ACT will reach nearly $21 billion. Its green-socialist government has imposed a $250 levy on every rateable property to assist in the funding of ‘free’ public hospitals. You can’t make this stuff up.)

And then there is Queensland. You might think that the dumping of the Miles’s Labor government would herald in better budget management. You would be wrong. Under the Crisafulli regime, gross debt is expected to go from $114 billion now to nearly $200 billion by the end of the decade. And this delta doesn’t include much Olympics related spending.

While the figures tell a great deal of the story, some of the individual programs that state governments wheel out are important too. There is the local pork-barrelling program in NSW in which local members are allocated monies under the Community Building Partnerships to then hand out to their mates.

There is also the absurd Pre-sale Finance Guarantee announced in the NSW budget ‘to accelerate the delivery of new housing across NSW. The government will guarantee pre-sales for $1 billion of housing projects’. Great deal for sleazy developers; pity about the taxpayer.

Don’t think that I am picking on NSW here; all the states have absurd programs with worthy-sounding blurbs but with no accountability for delivery. And top of the pops here is the roofed stadium in Hobart – estimated cost at least $1 billion – so the state can buy a football team in the big league.

(South Australian Premier, Peter Malinauskas – ‘Mali’ to his pals – was on track for getting an award, and not the type he would want, for throwing some $500 million at a green hydrogen project near Whyalla. But now the steel works has gone belly up, he has directed those funds to see whether the clapped-out mill has a future, along with its long-suffering workers.)

So, drum roll here, which state earns the wooden spoon for unspeakably atrocious budget management? It’s a gigantic tie: Victoria, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland. All wasteful spenders and irresponsible accumulators of debt.

While the ratings agencies might hope that the federal government will bail out a failing state, the feds would have a great deal of trouble bailing them all out. This is something they will need to bear in mind when confirming or downgrading the states’ credit ratings.