WA health to win in budget bonanza

WA is poised to unveil another multibillion-dollar budget surplus on Thursday.

WA Premier Mark McGowan. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

Western Australia is poised to unveil another multibillion-dollar budget surplus on Thursday, with Premier Mark McGowan preparing to throw more cash towards repairing the state’s struggling health system and easing cost-of-living pressures.

The latest operating surplus may well exceed the previous high of $5.8bn from last year and is likely to further anger rival state treasurers who are already upset about WA’s increased share of GST revenues.

The government is expected to announce a power bill credit worth hundreds of dollars to households as part of those cost-of-living measures, although Mr McGowan on Tuesday would not be drawn on the detail of the household assistance.

“Cost of living will be a major focus of the budget and we have greater capacity because of our financial management over the course of our time in office,” he said.

“The fact we kept the mining industry open without interruption during the course of the pandemic and the fact we secured the GST deal from the Commonwealth (means) we have greater capacity than other states.”

Another year of strong iron ore prices has pumped billions more of mining royalties into state government coffers, while the contentious GST deal – which ensured WA retained at least 70c of every dollar in GST it raised for the commonwealth – has secured billions more.

Opposition treasury spokesman Steve Thomas said he expected the surplus to be between $6bn and $7bn.

“The current boom is the biggest boom in the history of Western Australia. And it is not just that, but this is the biggest boom in the history of any state jurisdiction in Australia,” Mr Thomas said.

He said that while he would support some assistance for households, the government should be stepping up its efforts to pay down state debt.

CEDA senior economist Cassandra Winzar said the iron ore windfall needed to be used to help improve the diversity of the economy ahead of a downturn in the mining cycle.

She said the state should invest in attracting more international students and tourists to WA, after both sectors were severely curtailed by the pandemic.

Mr McGowan has already flagged that the budget will include major additional investments in the state’s health system, which was under significant pressure well before the arrival of Covid-19 in WA earlier this year.

The health-related promises unveiled to date include the deployment of registered nurses to hospital emergency department waiting rooms and improved monitoring of hospital capacity.