This artcle was written by FTMA’s Kat Welsh.
Currently The South Australian Government is in a bit of debt. By the 1st of July, it will clock up the sizeable amount of $26 billion. But that’s not the concern for this year’s State Budget. Treasurer Stephen Mullighan MP handed down his Budget Speech on the 15th of June with the notion to borrow more, to further invest in the State. It’s predicted to put South Australia further into the red, reaching $37.6 billion over the next few years. While the Government plans on increasing its lone capacity, what have they committed to for SA, business and the pressures on its residents?
Here’s an overview of The Budget priorities;
- Health – $2.3 billion over five years to help boost the healthcare system, renovating and increasing services, building new hospitals, ambulance stations, and supporting staff increases
- Housing packages – $474.7 million in total for increasing public housing, residential land releases around Adelaide, protecting rights of renting tenants, supporting regional housing for key community workers, and cutting stamp duty for first home buyers
- Cost of living assistance – $471.3 million for school fees, families with low incomes, and supporting children at school
- Energy bill relief – $254.4 million to support residential households and small business to pay electricity bills
- Child protection services – $216.6 million to target child welfare and associated supports, to reduce rates of abuse and family violence
- Flooding disaster and assistance packages – $194 million, includes road repairs and $1.3 million over the next four years to improve flood barrier caches.
- Small business and job supports – $186 million in total for economy growth, recovery funds, research and innovation, and $6.5 million over four years to the South Australian small business strategy.
The primary goals are a new hospital focused on the care of women and children, and the completion of the North-South Corridor Torrens to Darlington tunnel section designed to improve travel times and lower travel costs for users.
In his speech, Mr Mullighan acknowledged the great hardships South Australians had been facing recently with the cost of living, rocketing inflation rates, housing costs, a buckling healthcare system, and the Murray floods that caused devastation to communities. “The budget provides substantial cost of living relief, allocates large increases in funding for health, housing and child protection, and invests in our economy. It does this while maintaining this government’s commitment not to introduce any new taxes, or increase existing taxes, and continues our commitment to return the budget to surplus,” said the Treasurer.
It does appear that money is being allocated to help those really struggling, with pledges to increase foodbank supports, 6.5 million going to school breakfast programs, school fee subsidies, and $32.1 million over four years to carers of children under 16 years, at $50 per fortnight.
$128.8 million will be used over the next four years, to scrap stamp duty for first home buyers – when they buy or build a new home – with a property cap of $650 000. Mr Mullighan predicts that this will help approx. 3800 new home buyers per year to get on the housing ladder. The hope is that it will also assist in the demand for new builds and support the building trades – something that Master Builders South Australia have been campaigning for, for some time, to boost the building industry and drive up the demand for new houses in SA. $63.8 million has been promised to address the skills shortage and support TAFEs, to also assist industry.
Public transport also gets a lift, with healthcare workers qualifying for free transport, and a commitment of $23.5 million for regional bus services.
Future revenue makers for the State are predicted to be projects like Lot Fourteen, and the country’s Space Park, under construction in part of Adelaide Airport. The Budget is putting a further $33 million into the kitty over the next four years, while the Federal Government has also contributed a further $34.2 million, to the nation’s Australian Space Agency. The previous Premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall, back in 2021 said that “The Hub aligns with Australia’s space strategy that aims to triple the space sector’s contribution to GDP to over $12 billion per annum and create up to an additional 20,000 jobs by 2030.”
Although Australian Space Agency’s Facebook page only has 183 followers at this moment, the project is looking promising, and hopefully will take off soon.
The main downside seems to be “a further reduction of at least 50 full-time equivalent executive positions across agencies…” said Mr Mullighan, that, and the concern of going into further debt as a State – of which interest will be a key component in paying the money back. It is expected that interest charges alone will be $1.2 billion in the next financial year. But Mr Mullighan states that the Government is strong and has enough developing investments to justify the borrowing of more money – that the infrastructure projects they are initiating from this new Budget will support further economic revenue in the years to come.
While it feels like a relief that taxpayers and businesses won’t feel the hurt of repaying the State’s debt with any tax increase at this stage, let’s hope the Treasurer is right about the growth of the State’s revenue making capacity and the increase of borrowing, doesn’t mean an increase of taxes to SA in the future.
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