Premier's response to federal budget
At 11am on Wednesday 13 May, the Premier and Treasurer Andrew Fraser held a press conference to respond to last night's federal budget. Here is an edited extract of what the Premier had to say.
I welcome news in last night's Federal Budget that Queensland will see some Commonwealth money going into major building projects that are needed to create jobs now, and build Queensland, a growing State, for the future.
However, I think it's important that people understand that there was some very bad news for the Queensland State Budget in the budget papers brought down by Wayne Swan last night.
In the worst global recession that we've seen for three-quarters of a century, it's not surprising that Australians and Queenslanders are being more careful with their money and not spending.
When Queenslanders and Australians don't spend, then GST revenue declines. And last night's budget confirmed that we will see another $2 billion less of GST revenue go into the States over the next four years.
To put that in context, when you lose $2 billion of income what it means by way of comparison, $2 billion is more than the entire police service budget here in Queensland.
The 2009 budget was always going to be one of our toughest ever, and a tough job just got a lot tougher with last night's Federal Budget.
The drop in GST revenue will put even more pressure on a growing State, particularly one that needs to keep funding schools and hospitals, roads and front line services like police and emergency services.
It will make it that much more difficult for us as a government to consider wage rise claims. And it will make it more difficult for us to maintain and protect our building program.
But we remain committed to a 2009 State Budget that will have two main priorities: First, protecting our Queensland building program. This is infrastructure we need now to create jobs and every single project on that list is needed for the Queensland of today and tomorrow, and importantly for the economic recovery.
Secondly, we will be protecting frontline services and jobs in Queensland. That means that some of the decisions that we've got to make over the next month or so are going to have to be very tough decisions.
We are determined to bring down a budget that will not only invest in our building program and protect jobs, but one which does start to chart the way forward to bringing the budget back into surplus.
So the next four to five weeks are going to be some of the toughest weeks that we've faced as a government, and some of the decisions that I and the Treasurer and the Cabinet will make will be some of the toughest we've had to face since I've been in this position.
But when you have the worst global financial crisis that we've ever seen in our lifetime, you have to face up to it. You have to be honest with the people of Queensland about what it means. And I'm being very honest when I say I'm very pleased to see some new projects coming here to Queensland.
But there is a very serious hit to our bottom line with a significant drop in GST funding. GST is an important part of our budget revenue and when you see it drop by this dramatic distance then it will have to have some implications. You can not lose this kind of money off your bottom line and have a business-as-usual way forward.
Last updated Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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