Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows:

(1) Budget Paper No.1, Table 2 on page 9-4 provides details of the Australian Government general government sector balance sheet.

(2) The difference in total liabilities as at December 2010 compared to the full year MYEFO estimates is mainly driven by the difference in Australian Government's superannuation liabilities and higher account payables, offset by Commonwealth Government Securities on issue.

(3) Budget Paper No.1, Note 10 on page 9-21 provides the details.

(4) Care needs to be taken when comparing and interpreting the monthly collections data against the full year estimate. Updated expenses estimates by function, for the 2010-11 financial year were published in the 2011-12 Budget released on 10 May 2011. See page 6-53 of Budget Paper 1.

(5) A description of the Contingency Reserve (CR) is at page 6-55 of Budget Paper No. 1.

The CR ensures that aggregate estimates are as close as possible to expected outcomes, but it is not appropriated. Estimates that are included in the CR can only be drawn down upon once they have been appropriated by Parliament to an individual agency. These estimates are removed from the CR and allocated to specific agencies for appropriation and for outcome reporting closer to the time when the associated events eventuate.

Estimates of the CR profile are at page 6-54 of Budget Paper No. 1.

(6) to (8) Care needs to be taken when comparing and interpreting the monthly collections data against the full year estimate. This is due to the lumpy nature of tax collections, meaning monthly outcomes may not necessarily provide an accurate indication of how collections are tracking. Updated revenue estimates were published in the 2011-12 Budget released on 10 May 2011. See pages 5-38 and 5-39 of Budget Paper 1.

(9) Company tax paid by industry sector is provided in Taxation Statistics, published annually by the Australian Taxation Office. Please note the published data available has a two year lag.