Estimates Day: 2: Eva Lawler - It’s all very rubbery

Media release from the Leader of the Opposition, Lia Finocchiaro and Shadow Treasurer, Bill Yan:



Labor’s Treasurer has exposed the Fyles Government for exactly what it is – rubbery with the truth.

The Fyles Government cannot bring itself to acknowledge that Deloitte, ABS and CommSec all show worrying trends for the Territory’s economy and that all of the pillars required to achieve a $40b economy by 2030 are not achievable.

“When you look at the indicators that are going to get the Territory’s economy moving, you need to have strong population growth, project delivery, increased housing and stop people leaving the Territory,” said Shadow Treasurer Bill Yan.

Despite this, the CLP revealed that the Fyles Government’s 300,000 population target which underpins its $40b economy target is totally unachievable. “The Treasurer agreed that the Territory needs a 2.2% population growth each year to achieve its 300,000 target but its own budget papers show the maximum growth in any year is 1%. The 300,000 target is nothing more than spin and will not be achieved by Labor.”

The Fyles Government is out telling Territorians it will attract 10,000 new international students but the CLP revealed that Treasury do not believe this is achievable which is why they don’t use those figures in their population forecasts. The Treasurer took a question on notice about what the exact international student figure Treasury use to calculate its population forecasts.

A trademark of the Fyles Government has been to blame everybody else for their failures and today the Treasurer used every excuse under the sun (including the sun) to explain her disastrous budget position, Ukraine, COVID, China, the weather, the Federal Government, the crime across the world and the CLP, as to why she has lost control of the budget,” said Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro.

Crime was a major feature of questions to the Treasurer and included:

• What is the cost of crime on the Territory budget?
• What is the cost of crime on our economy?
• What is the opportunity cost of crime?

“Territorians will be disappointed to learn that the Fyles Government does not know and would not even attempt to calculate the cost of crime to the Territory, refusing several times to take the question on notice,” said Lia Finocchiaro.

“If the Treasurer doesn’t know the cost of crime, then Territorians can be certain that Labor has no plan to fix it,” said Mrs Finocchiaro.

The Opposition this morning has uncovered:

• Jamie Chalker’s payout was paid out of the Police Budget and no additional funds were provided to Police.
• The Howard Springs ‘wear and tear’ which will be millions in repairs will be taken from the Infrastructure Budget which means other projects will have to be cut
• The Treasurer said it is impossible to know how much crime impacts our economy
• Despite naming a worker shortage the Treasurer could not explain what the Government was doing to fix it
• According to the Treasurer, the employment rate can be explained by Territorians who ‘don’t want to work full time.’
• The Treasurer confirmed that her budget predicts that it will cost $1.65m a day for Territorians to service Labor’s debt.
• It will take 149 years to pay of Labor’s debt
• The Treasurer admitted the population figures don’t get the Territory anywhere near the target of 300,000 they continue to use.
• Treasury don’t count the 10,000 international students in their population targets because they are unachievable