Northern Territory debt reaches record $14 billion by 2029 as Country Liberal Party delivers first budget

ABC NEWS (Australia)

In the Northern Territory, the new 'Country Liberal' government has handed down its first budget since coming to power in august last year.

Transcript

00:00We've been going through this budget all morning, we've been poring over the books

00:06and I actually brought one of them with me so you can see just how big they are.

00:09There's about five or six of these ones that we've been looking through.

00:13And the big takeaways we've found really is that this is really a law and order budget.

00:18Addressing money to address crime is the main focus of it.

00:22But the net debt is also projected to continue to grow.

00:27So in terms of winners, I would say definitely corrections.

00:30There's been a large increase in the amount of money corrections get, particularly in terms of spending on staffing.

00:39And that's because there's been a really huge increase in the amount of people coming into the justice system

00:45and in the prison system because of a range of law and order measures that the government's pursued over its term in government.

00:52And long standing issues within the prison system like overcrowding.

00:57The other big winner I would say is primary health care.

01:00So the health budget has seen a $25.3 million increase in primary health care services.

01:07But the majority of that is funded through federal government commitments such as the Medicare urgent care clinic

01:13that was promised for Darwin before the election.

01:16Depending on how you look at it, there is one more winner, which is infrastructure.

01:21So there's a record $4.34 billion spend on infrastructure in this year's territory budget.

01:28But the majority of that isn't new commitments, it's big blowouts in the cost of existing commitments.

01:34And one example of that is the Darwin ship lift, which was announced by the previous CLP government last time they were in power.

01:42Then Labor got in.

01:43And over the course of eight years, the cost and timeline to deliver that project has blown out.

01:49And in this year's budget, there's an extra $305 million committed to delivering that project.

01:55On top of around $500 million that's already been committed to that.

02:00On the other hand, there are some losers.

02:02I'd say the big one is consultants with the government promising to save on consultants by about 20%.

02:09So reduce their spending there.

02:11Aboriginal justice is also receiving a reduction in spending.

02:15If we look at the line in the Attorney General Department's agency budget statement.

02:21And the tourism and film industry is also set to have a reduction in spending as well.

02:27The debt is projected to continue to climb.

02:30So it's in fact projected to reach $12 billion next financial year.

02:35And after that, over the forward estimates, reach more than $14 billion by 2028 to 2029.

02:42Now, the biggest spend with that debt, sorry, the biggest government spend rather, is public service employee costs.

02:50So government services is like a really important sector up here.

02:57And that accounts for about 41% of the overall spending of the government.

03:02Now that's expected to grow by another 4.9% in 2025-26.

03:07So the upcoming financial year.

03:09And the majority of that growth will be to support that extra pressure on corrections through growing the number of staff there.

03:16As well as growing the number of health workers as well.

03:19But although there is debt predicted to continue to increase over the next couple of years.

03:25The Treasurer's defended spending more on a range of things including infrastructure.

03:31Saying it's not the time for austerity measures.

03:33In the Ford estimates, we're also seeing a projection that will reach a $40 billion economy.

03:39So the Treasurer's predictions are that we'll reach a total value in the economy of $40 billion by 2028 to 2029.

03:50And that's interesting because it's been a long standing goal of the previous government to reach a $40 billion economy by 2030.

03:58So we can see that projected in the Ford estimates for the first time this year.

04:03Even though that previous government is now out of power.

04:06But that doesn't necessarily mean that will translate into more revenue for the government.

04:13And overall we are expecting that net debt to continue to climb.

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