Budget - Impact of Wage Increase for Health Works
Ms BURNET question to TREASURER, Mr ABETZ
[10.47 a.m.]
Your Budget doesn't appear to include the 3 per cent wage rise for health sector workers. We've calculated this will cost an additional $340 million over four years. Does this mean the Health department will have to in fact find a billion dollars' worth of savings to meet your austerity target?
ANSWER
Speaker, as I recall it - and if need be I'll come back and correct the record ‑ but I think the Budget incorporates a 2.5 per cent wage increase or anticipates that in the forward Estimates. Therefore, any increase above that is an implied saving for the various departments. Once again, I say to all colleagues that these are not easy decisions we have made. We are still borrowing in this Budget, we're just borrowing less to wean ourselves off that trajectory to ensure that we get a sustainable budget. I cannot stress this often enough, to have a sustainable budget is vital if you want to have a sustainable caring community and that is what we want in Tasmania. We can continue to pretend that we can borrow and borrow without any consequences, but all we've got to do is look over Bass Strait and see the consequences of that, where interest bills are now, I think, the second or third top item in those budgets.
We want to avoid that and that is why we are weaning ourselves off the trajectory of borrowings which were initiated as a result of COVID and governments of both persuasion, state and federal, undertook that. It is now time for balancing the budget. If I recall correctly, the member for Clark, Ms Burnet, was one of those who voted for the early election on the need for budget repair. Not one single question today has indicated to us where alternative savings could be made, other than getting rid of a capital project.
Dr Woodruff - Hold on, what about the stadium? That's been on the table for every question we've asked.
The SPEAKER - Order.
Mr ABETZ - That is where the honourable members, who self-identified just then, don't understand the difference between capital expenditure and operational expenditure. Capital expenditure is a one-off and the stadium -
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER - Order. All members of the House, I ask you to settle, please, so that the honourable Treasurer can be heard. You can ask further questions and there's other forms of the House that can be used.
Mr ABETZ - Speaker, a stadium will be of benefit to my grandchildren for 50, 60 years hence.
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER - Order.
Mr ABETZ - Whereas, if you used that money today, let's say for the Health budget, where are you going to get the money from next year and the year after and the year after and the year after? Because it won't exist. That is why you need to understand the difference between capital expenditure, which is a one‑off, and recurrent ongoing operational expenditure.
Supplementary Question
Ms BURNET - I thank the Treasurer for those 'words of wisdom'.
Mr Abetz - I'm glad you recognise them.
Ms BURNET - Treasurer, do you agree that the department might need to find a billion dollars worth of savings to meet a 3 per cent wage rise that will occur this year? That's a billion dollars.
Mr ABETZ - I'm not quite sure about the mathematics being pursued by the member for Clark, Ms Burnet, and I dare say that the mathematics is not correct. If I need to, I will correct the record and come back with a figure. The simple fact remains, as I've indicated, that that will be an implied saving embedded within the Health department costings. The counterfactual to that, which the member for Clark is suggesting, is that we borrow more. She voted for a motion that sent us to an early election premised on the need for budget repair. We're going about budget repair and now they're complaining.
Ms Haddad - You're saying there's no cuts -
The SPEAKER - Honourable member for Clark.
Mr ABETZ - Not one single suggestion as to how we can reduce operational expenditure has been put forward by anybody on the opposition.