Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to explore with the minister some different matters regarding the department of finance’s role in overseeing government expenditure generally. I draw the minister’s attention to page 1022 of this year’s Budget Paper No. 1, which indicates that expenditure across departments would be $49 billion. Last year’s equivalent Budget Paper No. 1 at page 1023 indicated that at that point the forecast expenditure across departments would be $54 billion. So expenditure has come in $5 billion under what was expected in last year’s budget papers. I want to explore with the minister whether that is a real change or whether there has been some change in the methodology of accounting practices that would account for that difference. If there have been changes to the methodology, could the minister inform the House of what those changes and their implications are? If there have not been changes in methodology and it is a real difference, perhaps the minister could indicate what has caused that very significant variation over the last 12 months.

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