Abbott can’t sustain Victoria’s raw deal in budget
Date
May 19, 2015 - 12:00AM
The Age
Tony Abbott thinks we're mugs. Deflecting attention from a budget that left Australia's second biggest state with only a fraction of Australia's infrastructure spending, he said he was so committed to the East West Link that he "gave Victoria $1.5 billion to actually get cracking".
It's true, he did give Victoria $1.5 billion for the East West Link in his first 2014-15 budget ($500 million of which was diverted from other Victorian projects). But in extraordinarily odd timing, he handed it over in 2013-14, just ahead of the year to which that budget referred.
The manoeuvres not only made Labor's last budget look bad, they made the Coalition's first two look good.
Like all budgets these days the 2014-15 budget was handed down in May. The 2013-14 financial year had seven weeks to run. The budget shovelled out the money immediately, before 2014-15 began and well ahead of when it could possibly have been needed. The East West Link contract wasn't signed until September.
The immediate payment had nothing to do with enabling Victoria to get cracking. It had everything to do with cooking the books.
Labor's last budget covered 2013-14. By shovelling out the East West Link money before 2013-14 ended he loaded up Labor's last financial year with extra spending. The 2013-14 deficit climbed from a forecast $18 billion to $48.5 billion. A lot of the deterioration was due to the collapse in commodity prices. The iron ore price slid from $US124 to $US93.
The rest was due to higher spending, most of it tacked on to Labor's budget by the Coalition. It directed $8.8 billion to the Reserve Bank within weeks of taking office, pushing up "Labor's" deficit by $8.8 billion. Then it directed $1.5 billion to Victoria well before it was needed.
The manoeuvres not only made Labor's last budget look bad, they made the Coalition's first two look good. Having funded the East West Link in 2013-14 the budget didn't need to fund it in 2014-15 (nor as it turned out in 2015-16) and it didn't need to find several billions in 2014-15 to top up the Reserve Bank's reserve fund. Indeed, with the reserve fund topped up the bank resumed paying dividends, giving Abbott $1.235 billion from its performance in 2013-14; half of which he directed to the 2014-15 budget, and half of which he held over until July in order to boost the 2015-16 budget.
And the early gift dressed up Denis Napthine's final Victorian budget. Taking it back will harm Daniel Andrews' first one.
It's particularly irksome that he gave Andrews no notice that he planned to take it back. Victoria's budget, delivered a week before the federal budget, is based on the assumption that the $1.5 billion can stay.
Abbott is using Victoria as a piggy bank. He paid it $1.5 billion at a time when it would hurt a Labor budget. He wants to take it back out at a time when it will help the Coalition's. He has already booked it in the budget as having been returned.
The billboards he is sending around Melbourne's eastern suburbs are a smokescreen. "Stuck in traffic! Blame Labor" they say. What they don't say is that the East West Link is such a bad project that a conventionally-constructed benefit cost analysis finds it returns just 45 cents for every dollar it costs. What they don't say is that the $1.5 billion could be better spent on projects whose returns exceed their costs. What they don't say is that Victoria voted against the East West Link in an election Abbott himself described as "a referendum on the East West Link".
Victorians voted for a rail project, one Abbott ought to be prepared to submit to Infrastructure Australia along with the East West Link. After all, that's what the policy he took to the federal election said he would do: "We will require all Commonwealth-funded projects worth more than $100 million to undergo a cost-benefit analysis by Infrastructure Australia to ensure the best use of available taxpayer monies," it said.
By refusing to do what he said he would do he is setting up a stand-off between Victoria and the Commonwealth, one that will enhance his budget's bottom line for as long as it goes on. If he can drag it out another year it will enhance the next budget's bottom line as well.
But he'll have to cave. Victoria has 25 per cent of Australia's population but is getting only 12 per cent of its infrastructure funds. Billboards and bluster can't obscure that forever.
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