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