Page 3403 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The preliminary outcome for the financial year now includes not only the full effect of the stimulus payments from the commonwealth but higher dividends and tax payments from public trading enterprises and a revaluation of infrastructure assets.
I also note that part of the reason for the surplus was that the unspent amount from the Treasurer’s advance was returned to the budget. Now, while the Treasurer may commend herself, as she did, on only spending $24 million out of the $37 million that was allocated the Treasurer’s advance, I would emphasise again that the preferred outcome is to return virtually all of the Treasurer’s advance each year.
I was rather surprised to see the fall in payroll tax receipts. At a time when the ACT’s level of unemployment has remained extremely low and demand for a number of skills has remained high, it would have been expected that payroll tax receipts would have been maintained.
The Treasurer comments that there was a soft labour market carried forward from 2008-09. I am surprised at this conclusion, as, according to statistics from the ABS, the ACT’s unemployment level during 2008-09 was less than three per cent. I would suggest that there might be another explanation for the outcome of the payroll tax receipts.
The fundamental issue that the Treasurer still has to deal with, however, is her failure to achieve the savings targets that she set out in the ACT budget that are required to bring the ACT budget back into a surplus as soon as practicable. We know that little was achieved in terms of savings during the 2009-10 financial year, such that the Treasurer had to re-emphasise the need to achieve savings during 2010-11 and in the outyears when she presented the 2010-11 ACT budget.
The Treasurer comments on one-off factors that have had an effect on the outcome for the year 2009-10. One of these I note is described as a review of the estate costing model utilised by the Land Development Agency. Is the Treasurer able to explain why this review was required, as it apparently resulted in a reduction of the agency’s costs of goods sold?
A somewhat worrying matter noted in this report is that the coverage of the territory’s superannuation liability has fallen to 44 per cent. Clearly, the continuing uncertainty in the global asset market is having an effect on this issue. I do note that in the 2010-11 budget papers it was expected that the coverage of these liabilities would grow to 53 per cent by 30 June 2011. I will be watching this matter closely through the course of this financial year to see how the territory continues to travel in covering these liabilities.
The only other matter on which I propose to comment at this point relates to the analysis of the ACT’s economy on page 3 of the report. The Treasurer says that the Australian GDP grew by 1.7 per cent in original terms in the year to March quarter 2010. The question is: why has the Treasurer used original data? No-one else does. The statistics that are normally used are to read the constant price trend or, of course, the seasonally adjusted data. I cannot understand why the Treasurer has used original
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video