Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Tuesday 22nd December 2009

Bartlett’s “beautiful set of numbers” – a $255 million blow-out in the operating deficit

What David Bartlett crows about as a “beautiful set of numbers” is actually a $255 million-blow out in the Government’s net operating deficit over the next 5 years (see table below).

Furthermore the MYFR has confirmed that we were absolutely correct in asserting that the Premier had made more than $300M in promises since July; and yesterday the Premier unbelievably increased his personal spend-a-thon up to almost $500m.

In a little over five and a half months the Premier has apparently abandoned his savings measures which he told us were essential to keep the budget bottom-line under control, and his $500M in new policy initiatives has resulted in the States bottom line over the next 5 years worsening by $255M.

Last election the total spend during the campaign by Premier Paul Lennon was around $560M.

Will we see the Premier spend his way to a billion dollars in promises by March? I fully expect that we will.

What is most concerning is that the Premier has now made promises of almost half a billion dollars that were not included in this year’s budget, when only last week the Treasurer Michael Aird made the point that “the impact of the global recession is still real” (Media release, 16th December).

It is also notable that forecast growth for the Tasmanian economy at just .25 percent is well below forecast Australian GDP growth of 1.5 percent.

Far from Labor being good economic managers as they claim, these figures prove the age-old adage: you simply can’t trust Labor with money.

Net Operating Balance