Document Index
Budget Paper 2

FOREWORD

Budget Paper No. 2 – Budget Measures 1999-2000 ensures that the Budget Papers provide comprehensive information on all Government decisions announced in the Budget that involve changes to its revenue, expense and investing activities.

Budget Paper No. 2 comprises three parts:

• Part I:Revenue Measures
• Part II:Expense Measures
  (this part identifies the full financial expenses of the measure.
• Part III:Capital Measures

Capital Measures are the decisions of the Government, which impact on the estimated Statement of Assets and Liabilities, rather than on the Operating Statement (see Statement 4 Financial Outlook in Budget Paper No.1 - Budget Strategy and Outlook, to locate these financial statements). Capital Measures represent:

• equity injections or equity withdrawals or loans by the Government to Commonwealth agencies to sustain the operating activities necessary to produce their outputs and achieve their outcomes
• capital injections associated with the items administered by agencies on behalf of the Commonwealth.

Capital measures, while often related to, are not the same as capital expenditure proposals. For example, the Government may also make equity injections or loans to agencies to meet the cash flow requirements associated with meeting outstanding liabilities. In addition, agencies may fund all or part of their capital expenditure or acquisitions of property, plant and equipment from their revenue from Government for the price of their outputs or from other internally generated resources.

A summary of all measures introduced since the 1998-99 Budget is included in each part, with the cost of the measure shown in cash revenue and underlying outlay terms. Those measures introduced since the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 1998-99 (MYEFO), including measures in this Budget, are described in detail and their expenses shown in accrual terms. Detailed descriptions of measures up to the time of the MYEFO are contained in that document.

Budget Paper No.1 - Budget Strategy and Outlook provides information on overall trends in expense and revenue estimates in Statement 1 – Fiscal Strategy, Statement 2 – Economic and Fiscal Outlook, Statement 4 – Financial Outlook, Statement 5 – Expenses, and Statement 6 - Revenue. Descriptions of Measures can also be found in the Portfolio Budget Statements issued in conjunction with this Budget.

NOTES

(a) The following definitions are used in this Budget Paper:

• ‘real’ means adjusted for the effect of inflation;
• real growth in expenses is measured by the non-farm Gross Domestic Product deflator;
• Budget year refers to 1999-2000, while the forward years refer to 2000-2001, 2001-02 and 2002-03; and
• one billion is equal to one thousand million.

(b) Figures in tables and generally in the text have been rounded. Discrepancies in tables between totals and sums of components are due to rounding:

• estimates under $100,000 are rounded to the nearest thousand;
• estimates $100,000 and over are generally rounded to the nearest tenth of a million;
• estimates midway between rounding points are rounded up; and
• the percentage changes in statistical tables are calculated using unrounded data.

(c) For the budget balance, a negative sign indicates a deficit while no sign indicates a surplus. For the cash tables in Statement 9, however, the ABS sign convention is used for presenting a deficit, where a negative sign indicates a surplus.

(d) The following notations are used:

NEC/nec not elsewhere classified

AEST Australian Eastern Standard Time

- nil

.. not zero, but rounded to zero

na not applicable (unless otherwise specified)

nfp not for publication

$m $ million

(e) References to the ‘States’ or ‘each State’ include the Territories, because from 1993-94 onwards, general purpose funding has been on the same basis for all jurisdictions. The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory are referred to as ‘the Territories’. The following abbreviations are used for the names of the States, where appropriate:

NSW New South Wales

VIC/Vic Victoria

QLD/Qld Queensland

WA Western Australia

SA South Australia

TAS/Tas Tasmania

ACT Australian Capital Territory

NT Northern Territory

Budget Strategy and Outlook 1999-2000 is one of a series of Budget Papers, the purpose of which is to provide information supplementary to that in the Budget Speech. A full list of the series is printed on the inside cover of this Paper.

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