Premier aims to ease Budget pain
Colin Barnett set the scene for a State Budget that will inflict some pain yesterday, but said it had been designed to have minimal impact on WA households.
After finalising the Budget at Monday's Cabinet meeting, the Premier reaffirmed that the Government was planning for deficits for the next two years.
He said the Government would continue to trim its expenditure, and planned changes to benefits had been "kept to a minimum".
"We are going to have a deficit this year and certainly next year, and they are large and they cannot be avoided," Mr Barnett said.
"There is nothing this government could have done to avoid this situation.
"We will return to surplus, and when we do, we'll use that surplus to repay debt. We'll also sell some assets."
Mr Barnett said he expected WA would receive between $500 and $600 million from the Federal Government to offset its loss of GST revenue.
He said he did not expect to know the exact details of the bailout package until the Federal Budget was handed down, but no conditions had been placed on it.
The money would primarily be spent on transport projects such as the Perth Freight Link, to which the Federal Government was already contributing, and the extension of the Mitchell Freeway.
"It's very welcome and at least it means we won't be worse off in the coming year, as we are already badly off this year, so it puts a bit of a floor under it," he said.
The State Budget will be handed down on May 14, two days after the Federal Budget.
