Today it was confirmed that the independent John Langoulant Plan for Budget Repair: Final Report, the Territory Labor Governments official response to this report and the results from the Root and Branch Review into Department expenditure will be released by the Chief Minister and Treasurer on Tuesday, 16 April 2019.
The report is a significant body of work and will outline the short, medium and long-term pathway to a sustainable budget and address the fiscal challenges that have been decades in the making.
Budget repair will ensure Government can continue to invest in job-creating projects, generational change and safer communities.
The Budget Repair report and Root and Branch work will help form Budget 2019 which will be released on, 7 May 2019.
Budget 2019 will also reflect the application of new Australian Accounting Standard AASB 16 (announced by the Board of Treasurers last year), which will result in a book entry increase to reported levels of gross and net debt for every state and territory, due to the change in accounting treatment of non-financial leases.
This reflects a change in reporting only and not an increase in the Territorys real borrowings. There will not be an actual worsening to the fiscal position.
According to the Board of Treasurers announcement, while an increase in reported debt levels will be apparent under the new standard, there will be no change in the economic or legal circumstances of the States and Territories as a result of applying AASB 16.
As stated by Treasurer Nicole Manison:
Our number one priority is creating local jobs and a sustainable budget and path forward allows us to continue doing this.
When we came to government we inherited an $876 million budget deficit from the CLP and a declining economy after the INPEX construction.
This situation was made much worse when the Commonwealth government legislated a brutal $500 million in cuts from our annual GST revenue.
To get our budget to a sustainable position, tough decisions will be made however, we will not take the CLP approach and slash and burn, sack hundreds of teachers and nurses and jack up the price of power by 30%.
We will continue to support Territorians by balancing investing in jobs, children, police, nurses and teachers with getting back to a sustainable budget position and we will continue our plans for generational change.
