Wednesday, 27 November 2024

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2024‒25 Budget Estimates

Jess WILSON (Kew) (10:42): I rise to make a contribution on the report on the 2024–25 budget estimates by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, tabled on 31 October. This is a very timely report given that this week is the 10-year anniversary of the Labor government being elected. And there has been a particular focus this week on the state of Victoria’s finances of late, particularly in the Australian Financial Review and by one of Australia’s most esteemed columnists Saul Eslake. I will return to the work of Mr Eslake – much to the concern of the member for Wendouree, I can see – momentarily, but first I want to call out some of the findings made by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee in this report.

The findings of this report are almost universally bleak. Finding 1 states that the government expects an operating deficit of $2.2 billion, while finding 3 states that interest on net debt will total $6.5 billion this financial year and is expected to reach $9.4 billion by 2027–28. And we know that by 2028 Victorians will be paying more than $1 million an hour in interest on the Labor government’s record debt. That is an average of 7.8 per cent of total revenue each year over the forward estimates for the interest bill in this state alone.

It is no surprise given these figures that one of Australia’s most celebrated entrepreneurs Dr Brian McNamee has labelled Victoria ‘simply un-investable’. This is a common theme when it comes to the business community expressing their concern about the management of Victoria’s finances under the Allan Labor government. We have the chamber of commerce listing Victoria as the place least preferable to do business in this country. We have one of Australia’s most lauded business figures in Dr McNamee talking about it being un-investable. We have the Australian Industry Group talking about the fact that it is simply impossible to encourage businesses to invest in this state.

Unfortunately there will not be much comfort for Dr McNamee or any others looking for green shoots when it comes to the Victorian economy among the other findings of the committee in this report.

Labor, as we know, had to find $1.5 billion in off-budget funding to keep Victorian hospitals afloat, according to finding 14. We know now that the Treasurer is trying to find any loose change that he can to pay for the health minister’s mismanagement of the health budget. In fact he was very happy to go out and say publicly how concerned he was about ministers in the Allan Labor government not managing their own budgets and not making sure that Victorians’ money was being used appropriately under their watch.

The findings in this report of PAEC paint a very, very bleak picture of the state of affairs here in Victoria. As I said, these findings are completely consistent with the analysis in the AFR this week by Saul Eslake. Mr Eslake meticulously demonstrates how Labor’s decade of economic mismanagement has laid waste to the living standards of Victorians. The debt, the interest on the debt and the decade of Labor’s reckless spending – these are all laid bare in the report by PAEC, but Mr Eslake’s work goes a step further and shows exactly what it means for every Victorian every single day.

Victoria’s per capita gross product declined from 1.7 per cent above the national average back in 1999 to 11.5 per cent below the national average in 2023–24. The story is very, very grim when it comes to household disposable income. In 2023–24 our per capita disposable income fell to 10 per cent below the national average, behind even Tasmania. Victoria’s living standards have fallen behind even Tasmania’s. To the Assistant Treasurer at the table, Victorians are feeling this every day. They know that once they have paid their bills, their tax and their mortgage, there is not as much left in their pockets as there was 10 years ago. They are feeling poorer, and indeed they are poorer after a decade of waste and mismanagement by this government.

You do not have to take Mr Eslake’s word, you can look to the Victorian Auditor-General, who has said that the Allan Labor government’s financial management is simply unsustainable. It is abundantly clear from this work, from the record taxes and from the mismanagement that Victorians have less money in their pockets, and they are paying the price of this government’s recklessness every single day.