The Turnbull Government is just one day away from crashing through half-a-trillion dollars in gross debt for the first time in Australia’s history.

Gross debt has already hit $499.3 billion on the Turnbull Government’s watch and a debt issuance tomorrow of $800 million will see it eclipse the $500 billion mark.

The milestone is further proof that the Coalition has not only failed the test it set for itself – to pay down debt – but has made it much worse.

Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann like to point the finger, but they have no one else to blame but themselves for their fiscal failures.

With debt skyrocketing, Turnbull and his ministers insist on tax cuts for millionaires and multinationals and refuse to adopt Labor’s fair Budget repair measures, including negative gearing and capital gains reforms.

After crashing through the half-a-trillion dollar mark, the Liberals’ runaway debt shows no sign of slowing down, with their own Budget papers expecting it to hit $725 billion in 2027-28 with no peak in sight.

The Treasurer was last month forced to raise the debt cap to an unprecedented $600 billion, but that won’t even cover the $606 billion in gross debt expected by the end of the forward estimates.

The Turnbull Government’s Budget also projects net debt to hit record levels over the next three years and the deficit to be 10 times bigger for the coming year than was predicted in Joe Hockey’s first Budget in 2014.

Higher interest payments on record debt is the price Australians are paying for four years of Liberal division and dysfunction, chaos and incompetence.

Better economic managers? Don’t think so.