Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas’s $9.5bn spending spree outlined

The Department of Treasury and Finance secretary said Victorian treasurer’s advances have not been reserved for the most urgent and unforeseen circumstances ‘for a little while’.

Tim Pallas’s department secretary says Victorian treasurer advances have not been reserved for the most urgent and unforeseen circumstances “for a little while”, amid revelations he blew $9.5bn in secret funding across 161 projects.

Department of Treasury and Finance secretary Chris Barrett faced the state’s parliamentary public accounts and estimates committee on Monday where he was grilled on the issuing of treasurer advances, the Commonwealth Games, Labor’s Big Build, debt and taxation.

Analysis released by the state opposition revealed that Mr Pallas had approved $9.56bn on the state’s secret credit card, which included $1.45bn in extra funding for hospitals, $84.3m in operating funding for the Department of Education and $152.75m for phase one of the Melbourne Arts Precinct transformation.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas at the Victorian Labor Party conference at Moonee Valley Racecourse in May 2024. Picture: David Crosling

The Department of Jobs, Skills and Industry was awarded $14.98m for extra operation and wages funding; $2.7m was given to the Department of Government Services.

The payments include $380m for the Commonwealth Games settlement and $1.3bn for the Department of Transport and Planning for the Suburban Rail Loop East major works.

“Prior to the pandemic, what tended to happen, particularly for capital projects, is we would … release the expected amount for that capital project to the department,” Mr Barrett said.

“In the last few years, we changed that system because we felt it was important to have greater scrutiny over a larger capital program; there certainly has been a larger capital program in recent years.”

Mr Barrett said the money was now contained in a central contingency held by the Treasurer, and that funding was passed to the department when milestones were achieved or as “we grow more confident in the estimate”.

Renders of the suburban rail loop.

Asked if he was saying treasurer advances were no longer for urgent or unforeseen circumstances, he said: “That’s been correct for a little while … we changed the practice a few years ago.”

Opposition Treasury spokesman Brad Rowswell said secret payments were being used to keep taxpayers in the dark about “the true state of Victoria’s finances … There is nothing unforeseen about funding our hospitals, schools or paying public servants and Labor must stop using treasurer’s advances for basic government functions.”