HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-17 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

STATE BUDGET

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (16:54): My question is to the Treasurer. How much of the $335 million in budgeted contingency funds remain unspent in 2008-09, and for what purposes will any remaining contingency funds be used?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (16:54): It is February; there are still a few months to go in 2008-09. I am not sure what the import of the question is. We have already forecast in our mid-year review that there will be a deficit in 2008-09 and, as I said publicly, that deficit will be larger because we have now been advised of a further $800 million deterioration in what we expect to obtain in GST payments. That equals a $1.68 billion (from memory) reduction in GST revenue over a four-year period, which is a massive hit to the budget, which will slip us into significant deficit. I am going to try to work our way through that as best as I am able in this quite extraordinary time.

As I have previously explained to the member and to the house, contingencies are predominantly there for wages and we split the amount of contingencies across a number of lines, because it is not in our best interests as a state to be flagging how much money we have put aside, and there are a number of other things: water and drought, for example. Contingencies are just a natural provision that one has for budgets. If the provisions are not used for what we have notionally allocated them for—

Mr Griffiths: So, it has all been allocated out?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, I have not said that. What I have said is that the contingency is that we are still negotiating teachers' EBs, and I am sure that we are still negotiating other wage deals. We still do not know the effect of drought and water. These are for unexpected occurrences. It is a simple equation; it is simple mathematics. If we do not use the full contingencies that we have put aside it will simply mean that we will have a smaller deficit by that amount than we otherwise would have. When we are running a budget deficit we do not say, 'Oh, gee, we've got $20 million left in our contingency; let's go and spend it. Trust me on that one.' I will be wanting every possible dollar to be brought to the bottom line to improve our budget position.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT