NT Budget 2025: No plan to tackle soaring debt as law and order wins big
The biggest ever NT budget has delivered record spends on law and order, while a major overhaul of the infrastructure program has scrapped more than a billion in capital works.
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The biggest ever Northern Territory budget has delivered record spends on law and order, while a major overhaul of the infrastructure program has scrapped more than a billion in capital works.
The Country Liberal government was elected last year promising to crack down on crime and rebuild the Territory economy.
NT Budget 2025-26 spends $1.5bn on public order and safety, but delivers little plan to rein in eye-watering amounts of debt that are forecast to see interest repayments cost every Territorian $3570 a year by 2028-29.
Treasurer Bill Yan is attempting to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the previous Labor government, pointing to previously hidden budget costs, deep deficits and economic mismanagement.
“Today’s budget puts crime victims first, prioritises law and order, and begins the long task of repairing Labor’s mess,” Mr Yan said on Tuesday morning.
“Despite the crisis and Labor’s failure, now is not the time for austerity.
“We need to play to our strengths in order to rebuild. This means prioritising sectors where the Territory holds comparative advantage and has strong long-term growth prospects such as energy, defence, agriculture, mining and tourism.”
JOBS DOWN, INFLATION UP
Mr Yan delivered plenty of bad fiscal news for ordinary Territorians, projecting higher unemployment, higher costs of living, bigger deficits and debt and a huge surge in interest payments.
Treasury forecast in the 2025-26 financial year unemployment across the Territory will increase to five per cent, the CPI rate to 2.9 per cent, net debt will hit $12.2bn and the deficit will peak at $265m.
Last year’s budget forecast 4.8 per cent unemployment, 2.5 per cent CPI, $11bn net debt and a $31m operating surplus.
Interest payments on debt is the big mover in this year’s budget, increasing from $579m this financial year to $679m next year.
This budget forecasts interest payments to hit $911m by 2028-29, and are on track for a billion dollars by decade’s end.
From 2026-27, interest payments will exceed the Territory’s tax take for the first time.
It expects the next surplus to be $17m in 2027-28, increasing to $52m by 2028-29.
In Territory Labor’s last budget, debt in 2027-28 was forecast to hit $12.33bn, while Mr Yan’s budget increases debt in 2027-28 to $13.5bn – the highest per capita debt in the country.
On the plus side Treasury is forecasting two further reductions to the cash rate this year, dropping to 3.5 per cent over the next 12 months.
Forecast to come in at 2.3 per cent in 2024-25, Gross State Product slumped by 2.6 per cent on the back of maintenance work by Inpex which the budget said interrupted gas shipments late last year.
A measure of goods and services produced in the Territory, next financial year’s forecast 7.8 per cent GSP surge is expected to be on the back of LNG exports from the Barossa project, which is set to move into production phase.
Mr Yan said to repair the budget, the Territory will engage with the commonwealth to “unlock economic opportunities, enable sustainable debt management and support regional and remote Territorians”.
At the same time, he said the Territory was overly dependant on the commonwealth – which provides more than 70 per cent of the NT’s revenue.
Mr Yan put the onus for the budget back onto the previous government, singling out a number of projects that had spectacularly blown their budgets under the previous administration.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Gallery in Alice Springs was originally costed at $50m, and blew out to over $300m before the CLP announced a downsize.
The Tiger Brennan Drive overpass blew-out by $99.4m, the State Square Art Gallery by $96m, the Darwin Youth Justice Centre by $85.2m, Mandorah marine facilities by $34.3m and the John Stokes Square and Nightcliff police station by $18.3m.
REPRIORITISATIONS TARGET INFRASTRUCTURE
Savings in the budget include a directive to the public service to find $20m, by cutting spending on external consultancies, travel and marketing.
Taxation and royalty reforms are expected to deliver an extra $142m to the government coffers, including a tax hike for internet gaming, bookmakers and betting exchanges.
The Budget also removes several projects from the Territory’s infrastructure program, reducing the total projected spend from $5.43bn to $4.34bn.
That does not mean a billion in savings, however, with most of those projects sitting outside the budget papers or previously uncosted.
“There’s projects that have been on the infrastructure program for over 10 or 12 years and had never, ever been delivered,” Mr Yan said.
“So the money put to those projects as well as the scoping of those projects was no longer relevant.
“Case in point is the $20m that was going to go to the Waterfront for the basketball stadium – we’ve taken that money away and reprioritised it.”
Budget 2025-26 includes $2.26bn in new policy commitments over two years, out of $12.19bn total spending.
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Originally published as NT Budget 2025: No plan to tackle soaring debt as law and order wins big
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