ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>2008&#8211;09 Commonwealth Budget - Overview</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="../../../_stylesheet/content.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="../../../_stylesheet/layout.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="../../../_stylesheet/overview.css"> </head> <body> <div id="body_container"> <div id="overview_inner"> <div id="overview_masthead"> <h4>Appendix B</h4> <h1 class="appendixHeading">Assessment against the fiscal<br />target</h1> <p class="description"> The Government has delivered on its commitment to achieve an underlying cash surplus in 2008&#8209;09 of at least 1.5 per cent of GDP without relying on upward revisions to tax receipts. All tax receipt revisions since the <span class="italicText">Pre&#8209;Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2007</span> have been saved, adding to the 1.5 per cent starting point to achieve a surplus of 1.8 per cent of GDP. </p> </div> <div id="overview_body_inner"> <div id="overview_content"> <p class="page-nav"> <a href="overview_34.htm"><img src="../../../_image/page_previous.gif" alt="&lt; previous page" /></a> <a href="index.htm"><img src="../../../_image/page_toc.gif" alt="contents and downloads" /></a> <a href="overview_36.htm"><img src="../../../_image/page_next.gif" alt="next page &gt;" /></a> </p> <div id="content_columns"> <div class="overview_col_wide"> <p>In cash terms, all new spending for 2008&#8209;09, including the Government's election commitments since the <span class="italicText">Pre&#8209;Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2007</span>, has been more than offset by savings. For 2008&#8209;09, the Government has identified gross savings of $7.3 billion, of which $1.6 billion are election commitments. These savings offset new policy decisions of $5.3 billion.</p> <p>Excluding new tax measures and associated GST payments to the States, the Government has offset all new payment spending of $5.3 billion in 2008&#8209;09 with spending cuts of $5.3 billion.</p> </div> </div> <div class="graph_table"> <div> <div class="graph_img"> <img src="../image/BO35_01.gif" alt="Table: Assessment against the fiscal target" /> </div> <div class="graph_footnotes"> <ul class="noBullet"> <li> <span class="alpha_bullet">(a)</span> <span class="footnote_text">Excludes GST receipts and payments of $371 million, which have no net impact on policy decisions.</span> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <p class="page-nav bottom_page"> <a href="overview_34.htm"><img src="../../../_image/page_previous.gif" alt="&lt; previous page" /></a> <a href="index.htm"><img src="../../../_image/page_toc.gif" alt="contents and downloads" /></a> <a href="overview_36.htm"><img src="../../../_image/page_next.gif" alt="next page &gt;" /></a> </p> </div> <div id="overview_footer"> <p id="footer_text"> <span id="footer_pageNum">35</span> <span id="footer_docTitle">2008-09 Budget <span class="orangeText">Overview</span></span> </p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </body> </html>