AUSTRALIANS drank less beer, smoked fewer cigarettes and left the car in the garage more often during the global financial crisis.

Figures contained in final Budget figures for the past financial year reveal the nation tightened its collective belt amid the fiscal gloom.

Excise collected by the Government on beer, cigarette and petrol sales during the global financial crisis came in millions of dollars below earlier official estimates. The final Budget outcome for 2009-10, released by Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Penny Wong, confirmed the Budget took a massive hit from falling revenues during the GFC.

Compared with forecasts issued before the crisis hit in 2008, the total loss of revenue in 2009-10 alone was a substantial $50 billion.

Excise revenue from petrol came in $51 million less than forecast, beer was $24 million lower and tobacco $268 million down as total government revenue fell $1.4 billion below estimates made in the 2010-11 Budget papers.

However, the Budget bottom line for 2009-10 emerged in slightly stronger shape than forecast in the recent May Budget - keeping the Government on track to return to surplus in two years.

The underlying cash deficit came in at $54.8 billion - which was $2.3 billion better than forecast.

While this still represented a record deficit in dollar terms, Mr Swan said the Budget was in far better shape than other comparable nations still struggling to shake off the impact of the GFC.

"The central objective for advanced economies was to halve their Budget deficits by 2013 - we are coming back to a surplus by 2013," Mr Swan said yesterday.

"When this economy was threatened we took very decisive, swift and effective action that produced outcomes here that are truly the envy of the rest of the world."

But shadow treasurer Joe Hockey accused Mr Swan and Senator Wong of being proud to announce the nation's biggest-ever Budget deficit in dollar terms.

"This shows yet again that Wayne Swan has never, and will never, deliver a surplus budget," Mr Hockey told The Daily Telegraph.