Public Sector Turning to the public sector, foreigners have remained ongoing purchasers of Australian government debt, with the level of holdings continuing to rise over the past couple of years. Flows into government bonds have nonetheless moderated, and have not kept pace with the increase in net issuance.
At face value, the headline statistics show that the foreign ownership share of government bonds has declined by around 20 percentage points since its peak in 2012. However, the extent of the decline is overstated.