I don’t watch TV so I don’t have to put up with any of it. Helps me keep a perfect calm in the midst of life. But there’s the interview above, and here is her comment below:

Alberici said she doesn’t “understand the hoo-ha” about her post-budget interview with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in which she accused the government of making up “nonsense” figures that “you continue to trot out”.

“I was just trying to bring facts to the table – that’s what we are supposed to do. I don’t think doing a challenging interview is biased. I think the opposite: we should be challenging everyone who is in front of us.”

The moment that matters is around 3:30. If she was right, then she has a point. If she was wrong, then she should apologise. In any case, she should be civil to a Minister of the Crown. Watching it for the first time, I have to say it was a perfectly normal interview and I thought Cormann answered everything as well as one could hope. But arguing about budget facts is unfair, since no one watching will know one way or the other.

But the question remains: who was right about the figures?

THE ANSWER: The answer that has most satisfied my curiosity was provided by Ray. A fine piece of investigative journalism, unlike the sort of common garden invective dished up by the ABC.

Cormann quoted a figure of $667 billion. Alberici said that was made up and the correct figure was $370 billion. However, the only reference to $370 billion I can find in PEFO is the projected face value of Commonwealth securities as at 2016-17. The $667 billion reference from Cormann relates to the projected face value of Commonwealth securities in 2023-24. Since PEFO contained no estimate for this out to 2023-24, Alberici has no basis to her claim that Cormann was wrong.

By the way if we really want to compare apples with apples, MYEFOs projection for the face value of Commonwealth securities in 2016-17 was $440 billion.