Ms LAWRIE - 2003-05-27
The Martin Labor government’s commitment to growing jobs and sound economic management is well established through successive Labor budgets. Treasurer, can you please inform the House how today’s budget sets out the framework for government to accomplish these goals?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Karama for her question. You do not have an opportunity, obviously, when you are delivering the budget to put it in the right context, but this gives me a chance. I felt proud of the honour when I delivered this budget on behalf of Territorians today because it is a great budget, despite what the opposition may have to say about it. It is a government that will deliver on jobs and safer communities. It delivers on tax cuts in a responsible and responsive fashion, and it supports Territory business. The budget contains no new taxes, despite what the Leader of the Opposition would have us believe from his question earlier.
At the same time, underpinning all of this, is the government’s continued commitment to fiscal responsibility in reducing deficit and heading towards that elusive balanced and beyond balanced budget - surplus budget - when we will, for the first time, be able to do something about that enormous debt burden left to us by our predecessors.
As well as meeting that commitment, I am very pleased with the way the government has tracked against its deficit reduction strategy. We estimated that the former government left us with a $139m deficit, and we returned a bottom line of $83m, an improvement of $56m - no mean feat. This financial year 2002-03, we projected a deficit of $94m. The reports now suggest that we will come in at around $31m - another saving on the bottom line of $63m that does not find its way through to debt, unlike our predecessors. The way we are tracking the future is very important but, at the same time as we have managed that, we have also managed to increase those key priority areas of the Martin Labor government: education, health and police. That is why that fiscal discipline and responsibility that we have maintained has been so important, because this allows us to do those things that Territorians expect governments to do.
In looking forward, 1300 construction jobs are not very far away when they start the LNG plant at Wickham Point later this year. We would expect to see increases in apprenticeships, and we have put extra money into vocational education and training for that. We are holding a total infrastructure program of $434m this financial year. That is only $5m below the record level of the total infrastructure program of $439m in 2002-03.
Regarding those reductions and tax cuts, payroll tax comes down from 6.3% to 6.2%, in line with our pre-election commitment that we would seek to reduce, over time, the payroll tax rate to those of the neighbouring states of South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. I note that Western Australia has bounced theirs up in their budget.
Madam Speaker, we do care about the cost of living on families and we are maintaining a spend of around $127m this financial year 2003-04, to try to keep the cost of living down as far as possible. It is a budget that delivers on a broad range of fronts and, apart from the opposition, I have not had anyone in my ear complaining yet.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Karama for her question. You do not have an opportunity, obviously, when you are delivering the budget to put it in the right context, but this gives me a chance. I felt proud of the honour when I delivered this budget on behalf of Territorians today because it is a great budget, despite what the opposition may have to say about it. It is a government that will deliver on jobs and safer communities. It delivers on tax cuts in a responsible and responsive fashion, and it supports Territory business. The budget contains no new taxes, despite what the Leader of the Opposition would have us believe from his question earlier.
At the same time, underpinning all of this, is the government’s continued commitment to fiscal responsibility in reducing deficit and heading towards that elusive balanced and beyond balanced budget - surplus budget - when we will, for the first time, be able to do something about that enormous debt burden left to us by our predecessors.
As well as meeting that commitment, I am very pleased with the way the government has tracked against its deficit reduction strategy. We estimated that the former government left us with a $139m deficit, and we returned a bottom line of $83m, an improvement of $56m - no mean feat. This financial year 2002-03, we projected a deficit of $94m. The reports now suggest that we will come in at around $31m - another saving on the bottom line of $63m that does not find its way through to debt, unlike our predecessors. The way we are tracking the future is very important but, at the same time as we have managed that, we have also managed to increase those key priority areas of the Martin Labor government: education, health and police. That is why that fiscal discipline and responsibility that we have maintained has been so important, because this allows us to do those things that Territorians expect governments to do.
In looking forward, 1300 construction jobs are not very far away when they start the LNG plant at Wickham Point later this year. We would expect to see increases in apprenticeships, and we have put extra money into vocational education and training for that. We are holding a total infrastructure program of $434m this financial year. That is only $5m below the record level of the total infrastructure program of $439m in 2002-03.
Regarding those reductions and tax cuts, payroll tax comes down from 6.3% to 6.2%, in line with our pre-election commitment that we would seek to reduce, over time, the payroll tax rate to those of the neighbouring states of South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. I note that Western Australia has bounced theirs up in their budget.
Madam Speaker, we do care about the cost of living on families and we are maintaining a spend of around $127m this financial year 2003-04, to try to keep the cost of living down as far as possible. It is a budget that delivers on a broad range of fronts and, apart from the opposition, I have not had anyone in my ear complaining yet.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016