Ms PURICK - 2012-05-01
If you spend the same this year as last on infrastructure your budget deficit would be nearly $900m. Why are your budget deficit blow-outs being used to prop up recurrent expenditure?
ANSWER
I do not know who is giving you these questions, member for Goyder, but seriously, you want to have a chat to them afterwards. That was strange ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms LAWRIE: No, I will step back through it. I had just mentioned in my previous answer that we have a step-down in the capital spend, despite your question indicating the opposite. In 2010-11, $1.7bn in capital; in 2011-12, $1.6bn; in 2012-13, $1.3bn. There is very clearly a step-down in the capital spend. Your question was the complete opposite, although it was a little convoluted to follow.
There is no increase. It is a step-down in the capital spend and we have been up-front with the business sector around that. We have explained what we are doing. Across the forward estimates, we will continue to step-down that capital spend. We will run countercyclical to the upswing in the private investment. There is something like $6.3bn extra private investment flowing through the economy predicted in the 2012-13 year. That is obviously coming out of those exciting major projects.
We all talk about Ichthys, but there are some very other big spends occurring across the private sector through the mines. Anyone who was at the Chamber of Commerce heard me list a series of oil and gas projects, onshore mining projects, as well as the government’s own major project spend in the all-important Marine Supply Base and the Darwin Correctional centre. As we all know, there is certainly a very strong pipeline of mining exploration in the Territory.
To keep it simple, the deficit is a result of the capital spend. We are stepping down the capital spend across the forward estimates as we are stepping down in the deficit, so predicting a deficit in 2012-13 of $449m, stepping out across the forward estimates to a deficit of $285m in 2015-16.
Wrapping up, the scaremongering is adding to the debt and making the debt out of control. You heard the Chief Minister explain the budget is worth $5.3bn. In this context, the deficits are absolutely manageable. Our debt servicing costs are predicted to remain below 8% of revenue over the forward estimates ...
Mrs Lambley interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: Again, I heard the member for Araluen say: ‘Well, that is Labor’. When you have a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia saying governments are not like households, they are not like businesses; they have responsibilities that go beyond that. To listen to the Coalition spokespeople I hear echoes of Republicans and the more extreme Tea Party Republicans - all this nonsense about governments have to live within their means, deficits are bad, deficits are bad. Member for Araluen, education, health, law and order, infrastructure spending and growth in the child protection budget are not bad things, they are responsible governance ...
Madam SPEAKER: Treasurer, your time has expired.
ANSWER
I do not know who is giving you these questions, member for Goyder, but seriously, you want to have a chat to them afterwards. That was strange ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms LAWRIE: No, I will step back through it. I had just mentioned in my previous answer that we have a step-down in the capital spend, despite your question indicating the opposite. In 2010-11, $1.7bn in capital; in 2011-12, $1.6bn; in 2012-13, $1.3bn. There is very clearly a step-down in the capital spend. Your question was the complete opposite, although it was a little convoluted to follow.
There is no increase. It is a step-down in the capital spend and we have been up-front with the business sector around that. We have explained what we are doing. Across the forward estimates, we will continue to step-down that capital spend. We will run countercyclical to the upswing in the private investment. There is something like $6.3bn extra private investment flowing through the economy predicted in the 2012-13 year. That is obviously coming out of those exciting major projects.
We all talk about Ichthys, but there are some very other big spends occurring across the private sector through the mines. Anyone who was at the Chamber of Commerce heard me list a series of oil and gas projects, onshore mining projects, as well as the government’s own major project spend in the all-important Marine Supply Base and the Darwin Correctional centre. As we all know, there is certainly a very strong pipeline of mining exploration in the Territory.
To keep it simple, the deficit is a result of the capital spend. We are stepping down the capital spend across the forward estimates as we are stepping down in the deficit, so predicting a deficit in 2012-13 of $449m, stepping out across the forward estimates to a deficit of $285m in 2015-16.
Wrapping up, the scaremongering is adding to the debt and making the debt out of control. You heard the Chief Minister explain the budget is worth $5.3bn. In this context, the deficits are absolutely manageable. Our debt servicing costs are predicted to remain below 8% of revenue over the forward estimates ...
Mrs Lambley interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: Again, I heard the member for Araluen say: ‘Well, that is Labor’. When you have a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia saying governments are not like households, they are not like businesses; they have responsibilities that go beyond that. To listen to the Coalition spokespeople I hear echoes of Republicans and the more extreme Tea Party Republicans - all this nonsense about governments have to live within their means, deficits are bad, deficits are bad. Member for Araluen, education, health, law and order, infrastructure spending and growth in the child protection budget are not bad things, they are responsible governance ...
Madam SPEAKER: Treasurer, your time has expired.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016