Appendix B: Specific Purpose Payments
This appendix provides accrual estimates of Australian Government Specific Purpose Payments (SPPs) ‘to’ and ‘through’ the states and direct to local government. This includes SPPs for current and capital purposes, together with details of Australian Government advances (loans) to the states, including new advances, interest on advances and repayments by the states. Most of these advances were funded from borrowings made on behalf of the states under previous Australian Loan Council arrangements.
Table B1 presents SPPs on a functional basis for the period 2004-05 to 2008-09. Payments are aggregated according to like purposes and are divided into those paid to the states and those paid through the states to be passed on to local government and others. Payments through the states are indicated in the table with an asterisk.
Tables B2 and B3 present estimates of the state-by-state distributions of the SPPs listed in Table B1, for the years 2004-05 and 2005-06 respectively.
A number of SPP agreements are due for renegotiation during the forward estimates period. Provision has been made for continued funding in the forward estimates. However, the extension of these agreements has not been negotiated and therefore the amounts payable under the agreements cannot be specifically identified.
In addition, final decisions on the distribution of some payments among the states are still to be taken by the Australian Government; for others, the final distribution for 2005-06 will not be settled until further data becomes available. In most instances, provisional or notional estimates of the distribution are included. This does not commit the Australian Government to fund a particular project or indicate that a state has agreed to participate in the programme.
Tables B4, B5 and B6 present estimates of Australian Government SPPs paid direct to local government authorities. Table B4 presents estimates on a functional basis for the period 2004-05 to 2008-09. Tables B5 and B6 present estimates of state-by-state distributions of payments direct to local government for 2004‑05 and 2005-06.