Scott Morrison’s recognition that debt can be either good or bad has so many positive aspects that it would be churlish to dwell too much on the inevitable quibbles. So let’s start with the positive.

First, the treasurer’s statement marks an end to the idea, pushed relentlessly for the past 20 years or more, that debt of any kind is an indication of fiscal mismanagement. This message, plastered over literal and metaphorical “debt trucks” by every conservative leader since John Howard has finally run up against the reality that debt is a central and essential tool of economic management for households, corporations and governments alike. No doubt there will be attempts to revive debt paranoia in the future but they will be much harder to sell.

Second, Morrison has undermined the core of the case for privatisation and private infrastructure investment, which has always rested on the supposed need to finance new public investments without reliance on public debt. At least for the foreseeable future, governments can borrow at interest rates far below the rates of return.

There is, admittedly, a separate case for privatisation, based on the idea that for-profit corporations will do a better job of providing infrastructure and public services than will governments or public enterprises. This idea is correct in some cases. But with Morrison’s announcement coming on the same day as the Turnbull government has moved to take over the market for gas, and after fiascos in electricity markets, vocational education and broadband, the general case for privatisation has collapsed.

Finally, Morrison’s statement implies that at long last governments will pay primary attention to the internationally standard system of accrual accounting, with separate capital and current accounts, rather than focusing attention a system of cash accounting more appropriate to managing a child’s pocket money than to giving an accurate picture of the fiscal position of the public sector.

The central element of accrual accounting is the concept of net worth, the difference between the value of assets and of liabilities. Because of Australia’s peculiar system of vertical fiscal imbalance, where most public assets are owned by the states but ultimately paid for by the commonwealth, it’s necessary to look at the public sector as a whole. As of 30 June 2016, the non-financial public sector had assets of roughly $2.2tn and liabilities of $1.4tn, for a net worth of about $800bn or about 50% of GDP. That’s a pretty healthy financial position.

In place of the cash operating deficit (or, very rarely, surplus), accrual accounting focuses on the net operating balance. The net operating balance takes account of changes in the value of assets and liabilities and is therefore harder (not impossible) to manipulate by the kinds of accounting tricks commonly practised to make budgets look better or worse.

All in all, then, an end to the idea of debt as a bogeyman, and a shift in focus to accrual accounts can only improve the quality of public debate in Australia. Still, there are some inevitable quibbles.

First, although we can say in aggregate whether an increase in government debt is “good” (associated with increased net worth) or “bad” (associated with increased current consumption net of revenue), we can’t, as Morrison seems to think, attach these labels to individual portfolios or items of expenditure. Money and debt are, in the jargon of fiscal economics, “fungible” – that is, they can be shifted from one account to another.

So a treasurer who wants to make a particular portfolio (say, that of a potential leadership rival) look “bad” can arbitrarily declare that its operating expenditure will be funded from debt rather than from current revenue. But the dollars all flow into and out of the same pot, regardless of their source and destination.

A more fundamental program is that the distinction between current expenditure and investment isn’t as clear-cut as the accounts make it seem. The most important example is education, which is classed as an item of current expenditure, even though it is the most important investment we can make. This led to absurdities like the Abbott government’s attempts to drive down education expenditure, and increase fees and charges, on the premise that the alternative was to leave our children burdened with debt.

On the other hand, some items of capital investment are little more than vanity projects for the minister who gets to cut the ribbon. The short-term gains from announcing the project are real enough but the long-term flow of benefits that characterises a genuine asset never materialises.

Overall, though, this is a big step forward. Paul Keating famously observed in 2003: “I inoculated a generation of treasurers with the surplus needle and none of them have yet found the antidote.” Nearly 15 years later, it looks as though the antidote may have been found.