FINAL BUDGET OUTCOME
2003-04

CIRCULATED BY
THE HONOURABLE PETER COSTELLO MP
TREASURER OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA AND
SENATOR THE HONOURABLE NICK MINCHIN
MINISTER FOR FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE INFORMATION OF HONOURABLE MEMBERS

SEPTEMBER 2004

 

© Commonwealth of Australia 2004

ISBN 0 642 74269 3

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Foreword

The Final Budget Outcome 2003-04 has been prepared in a manner consistent with the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998. The Charter requires that, inter alia, the Government provide a final budget outcome report no later than three months after the end of the financial year. Consistent with these requirements, this report encompasses Australian Government general government sector fiscal outcomes for the 2003-04 financial year and is based on external reporting standards.

• Part 1 provides the general government sector budget aggregates for 2003-04 together with an analysis of the 2003-04 final budget outcome. This includes summary analysis of revenue, expenses, net capital investment, cash flows and the balance sheet (net debt and net worth).

• Part 2 presents the Australian Government financial statements for 2003-04 in accordance with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Government Finance Statistics (GFS) framework. This data covers the general government sector as well as the Australian Government public corporations sectors.

• Part 3 presents the 2003-04 Australian Government general government sector financial statements in accordance with Australian Accounting Standards (AAS).

• Part 4 provides details for 2003-04 on Federal Financial Relations, updated from that contained in the 2004-05 Budget Paper No. 3.

• Appendix A contains details of budget concepts and reporting standards. Appendix B contains expenses data on a functional and sub-functional basis. Historical fiscal data are presented in Appendix C.

Notes

1. The following definitions are used in this paper:

• ‘real’ means adjusted for the effect of inflation;
• real growth in expenses is measured by the non-farm Gross Domestic Product deflator; and
• one billion is equal to one thousand million.

2. 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.

3. For the budget balance, a negative sign indicates a deficit while no sign indicates a surplus.
4. The following notations are used:

NEC/nec	not elsewhere classified
AEST	Australian Eastern Standard Time
-	not available
..	not zero, but rounded to zero
na	not applicable (unless otherwise specified)
nfp	not for publication
$m	$ million
$b	$ billion

5. References to the ‘States’ or ‘each State’ include the territories. 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