House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2) 52 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Budget Forecast BUDGET FORECAST Mr MARSHALL House of Assembly Norwood Leader of the Opposition BUDGET FORECAST Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:36): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier sought an update of state revenue projections after federal revenue projections for this year were revised down by $12 billion and, if so, are revenues on track to meet the current budget? The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL House of Assembly Cheltenham Premier Minister for State Development Minister for the Public Sector Minister for the Arts BUDGET FORECAST The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:36): I thank the honourable member for his question. Perhaps for his information, it is a regular matter for Treasury to update the state government from time to time in relation to how the government and the Treasury are plotting against forecasts. That is something that happens on a routine basis. That information is plotted on a regular basis. The most recent data will be incorporated, announced and published in the budget. That is when you will have the answer to your question. A fundamental input into the revenue coming into South Australia will, indeed, be the revenue coming in from the commonwealth budget, either directly through specific purpose payments—and we will have to see how the commonwealth addresses the write-down in its revenues in terms of how it responds in terms of state government financial arrangements—or there is another element of the federal budget which is not directly a matter of the federal budget but, indeed, estimates that come from the Commonwealth Grants Commission, which are estimates of future projections of GST and then the distributions of the GST to the various states. That will also be known in the federal budget and that has the most material effect on our future revenue projections. The short answer is that our state forecast of state-owned revenue will be contained in the budget. Budget night for the commonwealth will contain projections of commonwealth funding into South Australia, so that will be apparent on that night; and on that federal budget night there will also be GST projections which will allow us to be clearer about what will be coming into the state budget through GST distributions.