Mr BAYLEY question to TREASURER, Mr ABETZ
[11.04 a.m.]
Five years after warning your government about the direction of the state’s finances, last
week Treasury released its new fiscal sustainability report. Across 150 pages, Treasury laid out
in damning and alarming detail that Tasmania is in dire straits and warned of things getting
rapidly worse. In sounding the alarm bell, the experts in your department warned of debt
spiralling out of control, bailouts and the government losing sovereign control of the state’s
finances. They also repeated their consistent and clear advice that your plan to fix the budget
mess by ‘growing the economy’ is a fantasy that simply will not work and, again, called for new
sources of revenue. Will you finally step-up and take the action that we know the state needs,
like raising mining royalties and introducing fish farm royalties?
ANSWER
Honourable Speaker, the document that was tabled on Friday is a document from
Treasury. If the honourable member would not have excluded himself from the Multi-partisan
Budget Panel, he would have got a good briefing on it from Treasury officials on Friday
afternoon – something from which the newly-minted Independent member for Clark actually
benefited from. If you had been at that briefing, I doubt that you would have asked that
question.
What the report clearly indicates is that it assumes no government intervention, number
one. Number two, it says that this is not a forecast; it is a projection with nothing changing. For
example, one thing it takes into account is that the No Worse Off Guarantee with GST
payments will stop at the end of 2028-29 and the federal government will not do anything about
it. I have a hunch, and I join with the shadow treasurer in this, in the submission that has been
made to the Productivity Commission that horizontal fiscal equalisation should be implemented
again and, if that occurs, that will assist our financial position substantially. Similarly –
Mr BAYLEY – Speaker, point of order, Standing Order 45, relevance. My question
wasn’t about fiscal equalisation in the GST. My question was explicitly about whether you will
take Treasury’s advice to raise new own-source revenue and things like raising mining royalties
and introducing fish farm royalties.
The SPEAKER – Honourable Treasurer.
Mr ABETZ – The question, with great respect, Speaker, encompassed a lot more matters
than that which the Deputy Leader of the Greens now seeks to assert.
What I’m seeking to explain, and, had you been at the briefing of the panel from which
you have absented yourself – and good luck, you’re entitled to do that – that you would be better
informed today and would not be asking the question that you have, because part of this report
by Treasury assumes no change. It doesn’t, for example, consider Marinus. It doesn’t consider
that, which we’ve already announced in the 6 November interim Budget last year, that measures
will be taken, that we will continue to take measures such as the Efficiency and Productivity
Unit (EPU). This is, if you like, something that informs us and confirms to us that we have
a task ahead. That task ahead is very similar –
The SPEAKER – The honourable Treasurer’s time has expired.
Supplementary Question
Mr BAYLEY – A supplementary question, Speaker?
The SPEAKER – I will hear the supplementary.
Mr BAYLEY – From the minister’s answer I take it that he is not going to raise mining
royalties or introduce fish farm royalties, but he did mention the briefing several times. Did he
discuss revenue-raising measures, like mining and like fish farms, with the budget consultative
subcommittee?
The SPEAKER – Honourable Treasurer.
Mr ABETZ – Speaker, it’s always this time of the year when people in opposition parties
ask what’s going to be in the budget and what’s going to be out of the budget. I think a wise
government usually sees that we do not speculate about the budget until it’s delivered, which
will be on 21 May this year, all things being equal. I’m not going to get into the game of ruling
in, ruling out, but what I can say to you is that to deal with the issues, about 65 per cent will
need to be in relation to expenditure. That is something that the budget panel was told about
and that is our task: to rein in expenditure. It’s going to be difficult, but it’s exactly what
Mr Albanese and Premier Allan are experiencing in Canberra and Victoria post-COVID. That
is a task that all governments are now dealing with, irrespective of their political make-up.
The SPEAKER – The honourable Treasurer’s time has expired.
