2016-02-26
Greens Defence and Finance Spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, has released analysis from the Parliamentary Library showing that the new Defence spending outlined in yesterday’s White Paper has obliterated future budget surpluses.
Senator Whish-Wilson said, “Scott Morrison’s and Mathias Cormann’s ‘credible path to surplus’ appears to have taken a detour via the South China Sea.
“Even accounting for MYEFO’s heroic assumptions of 5.3% nominal GDP growth, these new Defence expenditures will send the wafer thin projected surplus back into deficits.
“After the farce of Joe Hockey’s budget emergency and millions spent on the Government Inter-Generational Report debt scare campaign, it is actually a Liberal Party cash splash that has broken the back of future budgets.
“The numbers in the Defence White Paper are so rubbery that it entirely likely that the result will be even worse. There are pages and pages of new spending line items as vague as ‘Next Generation Technologies $2-3 billion’. No other government agency gets to budget with such vague plans.
“The government is completely lost at sea with their fiscal strategy. They could have been investing in items such as education, infrastructure and clean energy that could that set Australia up for a prosperous and sustainable future. Instead they are pork-barrelling defence industries and trying to muscle into a dispute between our two largest trading partners,” he concluded.
DWP impact on underlying cash balance - % of GDP
DWP impact on underlying cash balance - $ billions
Whish-Wilson Parliamentary Library analysis of DWP impact on future underlying cash balances
