Territory Stories

Parliamentary record : Part I debates (27 February 1990)

Details:

Title

Parliamentary record : Part I debates (27 February 1990)

Collection

Debates for 5th Assembly 1987 - 1990; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 5th Assembly 1987 - 1990

Date

1990-02-27

Notes

Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

Language

English

Subject

Debates

Publisher name

Northern Territory Legislative Assembly

Place of publication

Darwin

File type

application/pdf

Use

Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Copyright owner

Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/220388

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/699398

Page content

DEBATES - Tuesday 27 February 1990 3. the national electorate demanded that fiscal responsibnity be exerc i sed. Duri ng the peri od since 1983-84, the Hawke government has converted a $9.6 bi 11 i on potentia 1 defi cit into a $9.1 billion estimated surplus AND handed back billions to ordinary Australian families through tax cuts ($5000m/year from the start of 1989-90 alone); 4. in the 1 i ght of budget con stra i nts and expenditure cuts, road funding has done very well. Under the new ACRD road program, annual road funds are indexed to maintain their real value. This resulted in an increase of $120m for 1989-90 which, compared with the CPI, represents a real increase to $1.342 billion. Federal road funds will be indexed again for at least the next 2 years. Local Road Funding No project approvals are required for the expenditure of federal funds on 1 oca 1 roads. Loca 1 council s a re free to determi ne their own priorities for the use of those funds. A block (tied) grant is made to the states for expenditure on ,local roads. The distribution of those funds to individual councils is made on the basis of a formula agreed to between the appropriate state road authority and the recognised representative local government associations( s) and approved by the federal government. The formul a is based on such elements as area, population, road length etc. Some state governments also provide grants from their own revenue to assist local councils with their road programs. The state road authorities also retain a proportion of federal local road funds fo~ special projects on local roads. All of these provisions have created some confusion among council s concerni ng the 1 eve 1 of road funds from the federal government. However, for 1988-89, local road funds were indexed to maintain their real value. The same occurred for 1989-9G and wi 11 occur aga in in 1990-91. THEREFORE, if your 1 oca 1 council has received less for roads it is NOT because of any reduction in federal funds. It must have resulted from: 1. lower grants by the state government, or; 2. the state road authority retaining a larger amount of the federal governments local road grants, or; 3. a change in the formula for sharing the funds. 8790