3 This means that inevitably, the construction of a national balance sheet is only partial, covering the elements that we can measure with some confidence.
Notwithstanding this, since the late 1980s, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has been producing an annual balance sheet for Australia, including an annual estimate of Australia’s net wealth, that is, the difference in the value of our assets and our liabilities. There are two “technical” issues that are worth pointing out before talking about this balance sheet in some detail.