State Final Demand, June Quarter 2026: Eight Jurisdictions, One Measure

State Final Demand, June Quarter 2026: Eight Jurisdictions, One Measure

Scope and Purpose

In the year to the June quarter of 2026, real state final demand rose in seven of Australia’s eight jurisdictions, by between 0.2% in the Northern Territory and 3.8% in Queensland, against 3.1% for the country as a whole. Tasmania recorded a 3.2% fall, which reflects the size of one quarter of public investment a year earlier and not household spending, which rose in every jurisdiction. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) published the figures on 2 September 2026 in Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product for the June quarter 2026 (ABS National Accounts).

State final demand is the spending of households, governments and businesses within a jurisdiction: household consumption, government consumption and gross fixed capital formation, which is investment in dwellings, buildings, machinery and similar assets (ABS concepts, sources and methods). The ABS attributes government consumption to the state where the related activity occurs and allocates the remainder using indicators that include population and Commonwealth employment, so a jurisdiction’s total includes Commonwealth spending located inside its borders. Every jurisdiction is measured on the same basis, which is why this output can rank them. Where the basis differs, it says so.

Australian Property Network (APN) certifies readings for its nodes nationally and, for some measures, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. The first three anchors are national conditions against which the release is read: Employment & GDP (21230), Inflation (21220) and Household Finance & Spending (21240). One state-level reading bears directly on the release, Public Investment Intensity (21810), which reads each jurisdiction’s public investment against its own history and is used below. No certified node reads state final demand itself, so those figures are presented as published series.

The Year to June 2026

Queensland (3.8%), Western Australia (3.6%) and New South Wales (3.5%) grew faster than the national 3.1%. Victoria (2.9%), South Australia (2.8%), the Australian Capital Territory (1.1%) and the Northern Territory (0.2%) grew more slowly, and Tasmania fell (−3.2%). On this measure Queensland grew the most and Tasmania the least of the eight.

Before any price adjustment, domestic final demand grew by 6.3% nationally, so the implied rise in prices across all of final demand was about 3.1%. Nominal growth ranged from 0.2% in Tasmania to 7.4% in Queensland. The implied price change is a ratio of two published series and is not a price index. Inflation (21220) reads +2.1049σ for the June quarter, above its baseline.

The national figure is not the sum of the state figures. The eight seasonally adjusted state series sum to $176 million more than the national series in the June quarter (694,102 against 693,926 in chain volume, $ million, a difference of 0.03%), while the unadjusted series agree to within $5 million. The difference arises because each series is adjusted for seasonal effects separately. Growth rates are comparable across jurisdictions; the sum of state levels should not be quoted as the national level.

What Sits Behind the Differences

Household consumption grew in every jurisdiction, by between 1.6% and 2.6%, a range of 1.0 percentage points. Private investment ranged from −5.4% in the Australian Capital Territory to 13.3% in New South Wales, and public investment from −41.2% in Tasmania to 17.9% in South Australia. The differences between jurisdictions in the year were differences in investment, not in what households spent.

Government consumption shows a wider spread than household consumption. General government final consumption rose 0.2% in New South Wales, against 3.4% in Victoria, 2.9% in Queensland and 3.8% in Western Australia. The ABS attributes Commonwealth spending using indicators as well as direct location, so the figures describe where spending is recorded and do not describe which level of government spent it.

Tasmania and the Northern Territory: Lumpy Investment

Most of Tasmania’s fall is a base effect from public investment. Public gross fixed capital formation in the state was $1,452 million in the June quarter of 2025 and $854 million in the June quarter of 2026. Across the ten quarters from March 2024, it was between $812 million and $983 million in eight, with two larger quarters at $1,447 million (September 2024) and $1,452 million (June 2025). The sector split of the same series, in current prices, shows where those two quarters came from.

In current prices, the two larger quarters were investment by state and local public corporations: $916 million in the September quarter of 2024 and $1,003 million in the June quarter of 2025, against between $317 million and $467 million in each of the other eight quarters. General government investment, Commonwealth and state and local together, stayed between $395 million and $523 million in every one of the ten quarters. The two larger quarters were investment by public corporations and not by general government. The series identifies the sector and does not identify the projects, so the projects are NIL RETURN. Public Investment Intensity (21810) reads four quarters of public investment against state final demand, which smooths single quarters. Tasmania read +2.1374σ at the March quarter of 2026 (8.0% of state final demand), when the window still held the June quarter of 2025, and +0.8643σ at the June quarter (6.9%), after that quarter had left it.

In the same year, Tasmanian household consumption rose 2.1% and private investment 0.8%. Over the two years to June 2026, real state final demand in Tasmania rose 2.7%, against 5.5% nationally. A single-year comparison across small jurisdictions is sensitive to one quarter, and the two-year figure is the steadier reading for Tasmania.

The Northern Territory shows the same pattern at a smaller scale. Public investment fell 24.8% and private investment 3.3% in the year, while household consumption rose 2.6% and government consumption 4.2%. Real state final demand there is 1.7% lower than two years earlier.

Since the End of 2019

Western Australia’s real state final demand is 29.8% above its December 2019 level, the largest rise of the eight. The Australian Capital Territory (24.5%), the Northern Territory (23.8%), Queensland (23.7%) and South Australia (22.8%) are also above the national 20.2%. New South Wales (16.9%), Tasmania (16.8%) and Victoria (16.7%) are within 0.2 percentage points of one another and below the national figure. Over six and a half years, real demand in New South Wales and Victoria, the two largest jurisdictions by state final demand, has grown more slowly than the national figure.

This is a comparison of total demand. A jurisdiction whose population grew faster will show faster growth in total spending for that reason alone, and the next section adjusts for population.

Per Person, to the March Quarter 2026

The latest ABS population estimates are for the March quarter of 2026, so the per person comparison runs to that quarter. State final demand in chain volume terms is divided by the estimated resident population at the end of the same quarter. Measured this way, real state final demand per person is 14.0% above its December 2019 level in South Australia, the largest of the eight, followed by the Northern Territory (11.8%), Western Australia (11.5%), Tasmania (11.2%) and the Australian Capital Territory (11.2%), all above the national 9.6%. Queensland (9.4%), New South Wales (9.1%) and Victoria (7.9%) are below it. Western Australia’s lead in total demand is largely population: its population is 15.2% above December 2019, the most of the eight, against 7.8% in South Australia, and it ranks third per person.

In the year to the March quarter of 2026, real state final demand per person rose 3.2% in New South Wales, 2.6% in South Australia, 1.9% in Victoria, 1.5% in Queensland, 1.1% in Tasmania and 0.9% in Western Australia, against 2.0% nationally. It was unchanged in the Australian Capital Territory (0.0%) and fell 4.5% in the Northern Territory. Population estimates are revised, and the June quarter estimates are due on 17 December 2026, when this comparison can be extended by one quarter.

The Public Share of Demand

Public final demand, meaning government consumption plus public investment located in a jurisdiction, was 28.7% of national domestic final demand in the June quarter of 2026, up from 26.4% in June 2019. It was 61.4% of state final demand in the Australian Capital Territory and 40.9% in the Northern Territory, and between 25.5% (Western Australia) and 33.8% (Tasmania) in the other six. The share is higher than in June 2019 in seven of the eight jurisdictions, and lower only in the Northern Territory.

The Australian Capital Territory’s share reflects the ABS attribution of Commonwealth spending to where the activity is located and to indicators such as Commonwealth employment. APN does not decompose the public share by level of government in this output.

Public investment alone, read against each jurisdiction’s own history, is Public Investment Intensity (21810). At the June quarter of 2026 it reads +1.7925σ in South Australia and −0.5392σ in the Australian Capital Territory, with the other six between +0.3546σ (Queensland) and +0.9484σ (Western Australia). Each reading compares a jurisdiction with its own 2011–2025 average, so it shows where public investment is high or low for that jurisdiction and does not show which jurisdiction invests more than another.

Not Tested

No certified node reads state final demand itself, so APN records a state-level reading of state final demand as NIL RETURN and presents those figures as published series. The per person comparison runs to the March quarter of 2026, because the June quarter population estimates are not yet published. The projects behind Tasmania’s two larger quarters of public corporation investment are NIL RETURN. Dwelling prices are outside this measure; the June quarter change in mean dwelling prices by state is set out in The Reversal. APN makes no forecast of state demand.

APN Analytical Synthesis

The weight of the evidence supports the interpretation that state demand grew in seven of eight jurisdictions in the year to June 2026 and that household spending rose in all eight. The spread between jurisdictions is a spread in investment, the component that moves in large steps in small jurisdictions: 18.7 percentage points in private investment and 59.1 in public investment, against 1.0 in household consumption. Current conditions are structurally consistent with a national economy in which prices in final demand rose by about 3.1% and Inflation (21220) stands above its norm, while Employment & GDP (21230) and Household Finance & Spending (21240) read at or modestly above theirs. Since 2019, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia have grown faster than the national figure, while New South Wales and Victoria, the two largest by state final demand, have grown more slowly. Per person the order changes: South Australia has grown most since 2019 and Victoria least, and Western Australia’s lead in total demand is largely population. Public Investment Intensity (21810) reads highest in South Australia and lowest in the Australian Capital Territory against each jurisdiction’s own history.

The data cannot separate a lasting difference in demand between jurisdictions from the timing of investment: a single quarter moves the one-year figure for Tasmania and the Northern Territory by several percentage points, and the state series are adjusted for seasonal effects separately from the national series. The comparisons of total demand are not adjusted for population, and the per person comparison runs one quarter behind them because the June quarter population estimates are due on 17 December 2026. This output speaks only to the structural conditions the cited data can independently support; it does not constitute a view on future economic growth, prices or government policy, and no such view is expressed or implied. The next data point is the ABS national accounts for the September quarter of 2026, due on 2 December 2026, which will extend every series in this output by one quarter.

Disclaimer

The analysis and information contained in this publication are for general informational and strategic purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, legal, or any other form of professional advice. Australian Property Network is not a licensed financial advisor. Property values and market conditions can go up or down. Before making any property or investment decisions, you must conduct your own thorough research and seek independent professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances.

Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.