Page 3592 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
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We have improved the territory’s budget bottom line by $400 million since the peak of the Mr Fluffy impact and the hit to our books from the commonwealth government’s horror 2014 budget, the budget that saw Joe Hockey sacked—he is now off in Washington—and then Prime Minister Tony Abbott sacked by his own party.
That budget and that process, combined with Mr Fluffy, was the single biggest economic shock to hit this territory in its history. We have climbed our way out of that situation. The final result for 2016-17 shows a territory budget broadly in balance, with the deficit having shrunk to around $10 million. And we are steadily and determinedly working towards a balanced budget in 2018-19 and modest surpluses across the forward estimates period.
We have achieved this whilst continuing to grow our investment in services for Canberrans. The 2017 territory budget included $443 million in new health investments—like the SPIRE centre at the Canberra Hospital and more nurse-led walk-in centres—on top of the $1.6 billion that we annually invest in the health and wellbeing of Canberrans each year. The budget delivered a $210 million investment in expanding and upgrading our local schools. This is in addition to the $1.2 billion we invest each year to give all Canberra kids access to a great education. And the budget delivered major new support for those within our community who need it, including kids who cannot live in their family homes, new migrants, Indigenous Canberrans, and our LGBTIQ community.
It is often said that there is no clearer indication of a government’s values than where it invests its budget each year. The values of this government are clearly on display in this budget, which shows that we are committed to delivering a better Canberra for everyone. A central part of our plan for a better city is building the infrastructure that will maintain and improve Canberra’s livability as our population grows. We have a $2.8 billion pipeline of capital works over the next four years which will see better transport, better health, better education, and better community and municipal infrastructure for Canberrans.
The territory’s AAA credit rating supports that investment by giving us reliable access to financial markets when we need it to fund this infrastructure work. The infrastructure that we are building today will be used by generations of Canberrans. These are projects with a lifespan of decades and centuries, not weeks, months and years. When we are building infrastructure that will benefit generations of Canberrans, it is entirely reasonable that we pay for this infrastructure over an extended period of time, not in one budget cycle. It simply would not be fair to expect those who live in the city right now to pay for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 or 100 years worth of infrastructure up front today.
That is why we borrow through domestic and international financial markets. Our AAA credit rating helps the government do so at a lower cost than would otherwise be the case. While there are many factors that contribute to the interest rates that we pay, including overall trends in the bond market, the broader national economy and competition for finance from other jurisdictions, it has been estimated that having the highest possible credit rating reduces our borrowing costs by something like five to
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