Senate Economics Legislation Committee, , 6:54:53 to 7:16:52
Review of the $103 billion in net government decisions since the election, focusing on investments in Medicare, hospitals, and the PBS.
Topics: Government spending, Health
Speakers: Damien White, Hon Jane Hume, Hon Katy Gallagher, Senator Lisa Darmanin, Unknown Speaker
I want to follow up on a question that I asked the Secretary this morning. I'm very much hoping that everybody was listening when I was asking that question about the um cumulative net government decisions. Oh, the cumulative decisions taken by the government uh over all of their budget updates. What is that dollar value?
Senator, yes, I was listening this morning. Um is the just to clarify the question. Is the question saying so in each budget update we put a reconciliation table? Yep. That shows that shows why the underlying cash balance changed, it includes estimates, variations and measures, and it has it for a four or five year period.
Yep. Um was your budget. Decisions as opposed to the variations.
Yeah, in the decisions, yes. So was your question about adding up those through the eight or nine updates since since the election in 2022? Is that the question you were asking?
Yes.
That's good because I was other I couldn't work out where the hundred and twenty billion dollar number came from. So we'll give you some numbers, but we'll give you a bit of context as well. So as my secretary said this morning, we consider um the important budget aggregates when you look at the macroeconomic impact of the budget and fiscal sustainability to be things like the underlying cash balance, especially, but also things like gross debt. Um, as is set out in the final budget outcome since the government was elected in 2022, the underlying cash balance is improved by 230 billion dollars over the years.
I don't think that's the question that I understood.
And uh a lot um a good part of that was tax receipts upgrades. Yep, and again, um and they've banked 77%, so governments have a choice about how much they what they do with those unexpected tax things, and they've done that.
Yep.
We've just talked about real growth being two per cent. Now, when we when we look at those things, as I said, those four years or five years, so budgets have five year periods that they add up. My EFOs have four year periods because we drop out the first year because it's become an actual and it's no longer in the estimates. And then each budget we add a new year at the end to move the forward estimates along. So when we look at these things, it's not the same period we're talking about all the time. It's a four or five year period, but it keeps moving out. And then the other thing which I've had a discussion at estimates, I think this time last year is that those are the estimates at the time, right? So they are not an outcome of measures. So if measures change from what we estimated, they are not what is we don't update the measures for those numbers.
Okay.
So for those, and as I discussed at estimates a year ago, for those reasons, we don't normally add up those things like that because they're not really comparing apples with apples.
Well, you do. This is the thing, you know. This is how the 180 billion dollars in gross savings tally is constructed. So you do add them up.
So as I said when I was here before, we give them with caveats about they're not actually apples and apples. And I think I said at the time is it about? We give the same advice when we put these up. So I will tell you what the numbers have been over time, Senator. So in the 22.3 budget, so the first budget of this government, it was uh 9782 million dollars. Um, and they are numbers that they are net, they are numbers that make the budget worse. This is the government's first budget in October 2023.
When Chris Richardson says 100 billion dollars, what is it that he's referring to?
So you're I don't I don't know what Chris Richards referring to, Senator. Oh, yeah. So I'm gonna re I'm gonna give you these numbers because they're the ones that come out of the budget papers. And then so we'll just give you what's in the budget.
Yep.
So then in the 22324 budget, it was minus 2588 million. In the 234 My EFO, it was minus 526 million. 245 budget, it was minus 24439.
Yep.
The 245 My EFO was minus 17,465. In the 25-6 budget, it was minus 3484. Um, then there was also numbers in the PFO that came out, and that was minus 1109. Uh and then in the my EFO for 25.6, it was plus 2170.
Yep.
And then in the 206-7 budget from earlier this year, it was plus eight two four two.
So, add them all up. Um what do you get?
It's 103 billion, Senator.
Oh, that sounds familiar.
But as we said, we would have evidence on that that we know they're not all quite the same.
Right. So that is 100 billion dollars, sorry. 103.122 billion dollars.
I haven't added it up to a decimal center.
So in terms of the uh big components of that, which I think is important, uh it's uh there's twenty seven point eight billion on strengthening Medicare, which is the UCC's the tripling the bulk billing and the one eight hundred Medicare. Twenty-five billion in the state agreement on public hospitals. Uh twenty-four billion on cheaper medicines, including new and amended PBS listings. Uh sixteen into aged care. And these don't completely line up with those, but I'm just talking in general about where those big pieces of investment have been. Well, I'm just any discussion of additional investment, we should consider what those investments are. Well, I'm just fine if people want to go out and say that that is not quality spending, but then they need to say what that means for Medicare, for medicines for hospital.
But all I'm saying behind that is that you claim to have saved a hundred and eighty billion dollars. Well, we've actually spent a hundred billion dollars for every two dollars that you have claimed to have saved, you have spent three.
No, I don't agree that you have outlined that.
So we will take a short break. Are we right to okay? So we can release um the school group now. Thank you very much. We will suspend for a short break and we'll be back at four PM with revenue small business and law groups. Oh, sorry, Senator Whitten.