In the interest of transparency, each jurisdiction is required to publish its Loan Council Allocation estimates, under the 'Uniform Presentation Framework'.
[4] The Loan Council was established by the Premiers' Conference of May 1923 as a voluntary organisation of Commonwealth and state governments, to co-ordinate Commonwealth and state debt raisings and to avoid each competing against the others for capital funds, three-quarters of which came from overseas (mainly Britain).
The 1928 referendum for the purpose was carried by a large majority of voters in all six states to insert a new provision, Section 105A, into the Finance and Trade Chapter of the Australian Constitution.
A test of the Financial Agreement soon came when the Great Depression hit Australia and the Commonwealth and state governments sought to devise a strategy to deal with it.
In August 1930, Prime Minister Scullin invited Sir Otto Niemeyer of the Bank of England to advise the premiers.
He recommended a traditional deflationary response of balanced budgets to combat Australia's high levels of debt and insisted that interest on loans be met.