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Federal budget

Opinion

Shane Wright Senior economics correspondent October 30, 2025 — 5.00am

It sounds like something out of a movie.

On the morning of March 12, 1932, then-NSW premier Jack Lang and some state Treasury officials visited two major banks in central Sydney. They carried suitcases that would soon be filled with millions of pounds.

The money was taken back to the NSW Treasury building which featured vaults that had once protected the state’s gold holdings. On this occasion, the vaults were stuffed with the cash that Lang feared would be confiscated by the federal government to pay NSW debts which the premier was refusing to honour.

Lang’s escapades on the streets of Sydney that day in March occurred the last time a state government effectively def

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