Released today, the 2021-22 Quarterly Financial Report to 30 September 2021 is grim reading.
It shows that the net result from transactions in the first three months of this financial year was a deficit of $6.8 billion, against a full year forecast of $11.6 billion.
The $6.8 billion reported deficit is 60 per cent of the full year forecast deficit, with nine months of Daniel Andrews' and Tim Pallas’ reckless spending and project mismanagement to come.
There is no doubt the $11.6 billion full year deficit forecast from transactions will blow out by billions.
Victoria’s net debt position doesn’t fare any better. In only three months, Daniel Andrews and Tim Pallas have added $9.5 billion to the debt burden of all Victorians with total net debt as at 30 September being $82.2 billion – the highest net debt level in Victoria’s history.
Daniel Andrews and Tim Pallas have shackled every Victorian man, woman and child with $12,367 of debt – and the figure keeps growing not purely due to COVID-19 support spending but also due to continued borrowing to plug budget blow-outs in the badly managed and hugely wasteful Big Build program.
By the end of this financial year, net debt is expected to increase to $97.3 billion – a tax burden of $14,630 for every man, woman and child in Victoria.
However, given the dismal result only three months into the financial year it is highly likely net debt will be significantly higher.
Comments attributable to Shadow Treasurer, David Davis:
“Andrews and Pallas are racking up debt at a frightening pace, in part due to their waste and mismanagement of major projects which are billions and billions of dollars over budget.
“Appropriate spending on COVID-19 recovery is important, but with Victoria’s unemployment rate the worst in the nation, it is clear Andrews’ prolonged lockdowns have wrought terrible and unique damage on Victorian small businesses, lives and livelihoods and his COVID recovery efforts have not borne fruit.
“Andrews’ massive debt will be a millstone around the necks of generations of Victorians to come and what have we got for it? The worst unemployment in the nation and the only state or territory actually shrinking its population.
“Andrews has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of way too many Victorians and now he is mortgaging future generations. Ten of thousands of Victorians are simply giving up and moving away.
“How can you trust the man who got us into this mess to get us out of it?”