Wednesday, March 3, 1999
Treasurer signals tough Budget
Treasurer Peter Costello today forecast a tough May Federal Budget,
saying the Government would keep spending down.
"The first imperative is to hold the fiscal position," Mr Costello
told reporters.
"We are going to maintain a tight rein on spending.
"The Australian budget was in surplus last year, it will be in
surplus this year and our budgetary policy is to keep it in surplus
right across the forward estimates, which is the next four years," he
said.
Several key sectors including education are already heavily into
their pre-Budget lobbying with the release of Budget submissions
calling for increased spending.
But Mr Costello said maintenance of the Budget position was crucial
to international confidence in the Australian economy.
"If we want to maintain confidence in the Australian economy, we have
to maintain those surpluses," he said.
"If we didn't maintain a decent budget position you would burn up a
lot of that confidence.
"If we had our budget now in deficit ... things would have been
savage for Australia."
He warned the voting down of the Government's tax package by the
Senate would impact on the budget.
"You can't just play around with these huge sums as if it has no
effect, it will have an effect," he said.
"It will have an effect on our Budget numbers, it will have an effect
on the way in which investment is viewed in this country, it will
have an effect on all sorts of things."
Mr Costello said it was standard practice to include such things in
forward estimates, even if there was a chance the changes would not
be passed.
"When we do our forward estimates, particularly the big tax changes
which occur in 2000-2001, the forward estimates will have our
decisions in them, which means that every defeated measure affects
those forward estimates.
"This has always been the way." - Australian Associated Press
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