Ms BURNET (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak to this supplementary appropriation bill. It is the first one I have been able to speak to. I find it extraordinary that only after such a short period of time – I know the budget was delayed, but it was only a handful of months ago, and here we are with a request from the Treasurer to provide more funding. It is not just a small amount to make ends meet, but a significant amount. It is almost half‑a-billion dollars. The request is for $467.5 million. This was not reflected in the September budget. I would like to know if these are just attributed to those few months we have had since then. This is a significant hike to the public debt to fund these areas.
The areas we have before us in this supplementary appropriation bill include funding for DECYP and the Tasmanian Home Builder Grant, which is $180 000. There is Department of Health funding for health demand and service requirements, Mental Health and Wellbeing. We see the response to the commission of inquiry and claims for child sexual abuse in state care, for the prison service and Department of Natural Resources and Environment. We also look at support for injured workers with an amount of $14.5 million, which seems an incredible shortfall. I would like to hear from the Treasurer why this is such a large figure in such a short period of time and why it was not recognised earlier in the budget. Was the budget an underfunding situation or has this only occurred since that time? That is a significant amount for compensation for injured workers.
Mr Bayley talked extensively about the severe weather event. That $11 million for the severe weather event in August and September was a necessary intervention but, as Mr Bayley has said, these will be happening with greater regularity. How do we get ahead of the curve and recognise that we need to respond a lot more effectively so that this is not a continuous strain on the budget? It is difficult to think that we can just continually hand out money in these times of need which will be coming up more and more frequently.
There is money for the former Bethlehem House, so there is more support for women facing homelessness, which is a good thing.
I am curious to know, Treasurer, about the $8 million in relation to Tasmanian Railway Pty Ltd, which has been provided ‘to meet the government’s commitment to increase the below rail infrastructure contribution to TasRail.’ I suspect that might be in response to the Australian government’s announcement about bringing forward $15.6 million of funding for the Tasmanian Freight Rail Revitalisation Tranche 4, which was announced in March. It would be good to know exactly what that is used for.
I might add that the federal government has committed to an over $200 million boost to southern Tasmanian roads, and a lot of that is for active transport routes across the south‑east of the state. It would be interesting to know what sort of commitment the state government has to building active transport routes and delivering on their promises.
I have some questions about why these were not listed in the budget paper and why the government is not considering walking away from other spending commitments that our state cannot afford. I will mention the stadium, because I think it is important to recognise that the stadium will be an ongoing drain on our state’s finances. It will be an incredible drain that will serve as intergenerational debt. I think that is of huge concern, and for Labor to try and push that away as a non‑issue shows the blind spot that Labor has in relation to this as much as the government does.
If we compare this supplementary appropriation bill to expenditure in three previous financial years: in 2019‑20 there was a supplementary expenditure or appropriation of $405 million. That went up to $442 million in 2021‑22, which was mostly because of a stimulus with the COVID response. In 2022‑23, we saw $340.5 million as a supplementary expenditure and $163.4 million for Homes Tasmania. These are significant amounts of money in a very short period of time, which is of concern in terms of how well the government is really managing the finances of this state. It is a big question mark.
It is a bigger question mark when you think about the forward Estimates. I believe that Mr Willie suggested it was $9.64 billion of debt, and that debt will need to be serviced. It will cost more to service that loan, as we know, and we know that the impact is both a greater cost but also a reduction and a downgrading of the state’s credit rating. There are huge concerns for the generations to come. The lack of care and lack of prudence of the state government is very telling. It is incredible to think that there is such a lack of concern when it comes to how public money is spent.
Then we get to last week and how the government might address some of this overspending. The government announced that it would be tightening its belt a notch by selling off our public institutions, trying to privatise those public institutions at the same time as putting fear into the hearts of public servants across the board. All public servants should be aware that their jobs may be on the line. It is of huge concern the way that the government is approaching this.
We need a different approach than the government is providing currently. The Liberal government is not showing the financial restraint that is required. They are not thinking about the longer term picture, the responses to climate change, the responses to servicing that huge amount of debt that we, as a state, the taxpayers, the community, the people of Tasmania incur with this rather taciturn approach to managing the finances.
Whilst we support this, the Greens do have significant concerns in relation to how this budget is being managed.
