Meanwhile, in Victoria: infrastructure funding, legalising euthanasia

Tim Pallas attacks infrastructure funding while rumours swirl around moves to legalise euthanasia.

Tim Pallas: “This is a broken promise from a government more interested in self promotion than keeping its word”.

When Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas nails his lines, you can bet it is a fair point he is making.

Pallas is a respected politician, but it must be noted that he is far from the greatest orator. In fact, in the words of someone on his own side, “his mouth is a place where words go to die”.

But Pallas was certainly on song today in attacking federal Treasurer Scott Morrison’s heavily hyped infrastructure funding “bonanza” for Victoria.

“This is a broken promise from a government more interested in self promotion than keeping its word,’’ he said.

A broken promise might be a bridge too far, but it’s certainly about self promotion. Described as a “windfall” in some quarters, the $857m tipped to be allocated towards the $11bn revamp of Melbourne’s underground railway tomorrow would have flowed to Victoria anyway.

On the information released so far it appears to be money from the federal government’s asset recycling fund, to which Victoria will be entitled anyway once it finalises the $6bn sale of the Port of Melbourne. The fund provides a bonus of 15 per cent of the sale price – or $900m on current estimates - for states that sell off assets to invest in new infrastructure.

What Morrison is really announcing is the federal government is effectively pre-allocating this previously untied money to the Melbourne Metro project. If you wanted to be pedantic, you could even argue that the Commonwealth’s move is actually placing additional restraints on how the money can be spent.

NSW IS IN FRONT. BUT NOT BY MUCH

Victoria is catching up to New South Wales as the battle to be the Australian economy’s powerhouse continues.

CommSec’s latest State of the States report puts Victoria at number two for this quarter but it is topping the nation on some measures including housing finance.

The state has the fastest annual growth rate of any state - up 4.3 per cent on a year ago - compared with New South Wales on 3 per cent.

‘Victoria has also tied with the Northern Territory for the highest real wage growth, with a 2.4 per

cent rise this quarter.

Tim Pallas, fresh from his latest state budget, said in a statement: “Victoria’s

economy continues to bound along.”

Victoria has beaten New South Wales on housing finance this quarter with the number of

commitments 21.6 per cent above the long term average, just ahead of New South Wales’ 21 per

cent.

Victoria also racked up the highest annual growth rate in construction work, up 9 per cent from a

year ago.

CommSec has put the strong showing down to Victoria’s solid population growth performance, which

is up 1.75 per cent from a year ago.

Victoria won the silver in this CommSec report but it’s still miles ahead of the sister states on nearly

all fronts.

The state’s weakest spot was equipment investment with a 1.4 per cent drop on decade-average levels but it’s still in third place, edging out South Australia.

Mr Pallas will be pleased unemployment levels have eased in the past three months as he bolsters the Andrew Government’s credentials on jobs.

But the jobless rate of 5.9 per cent is still 8.5 per cent above CommSec’s decade long average unlike

New South Wales which is the only state performing better than its average.

WILL DAN BACK EUTHANASIA?

The rumours doing the rounds at Spring Street suggest the Andrews government will move to legally back a form of euthanasia.

The word is that the cross party parliamentary inquiry will back legalised assisted suicide.

But it would be one thing for a tin pot committee to back the move, quite another for a democratically elected government to do the same.

Despite the political momentum moving back to Labor in recent weeks, the unity is cosmetic.

How, for instance, would the shop assistants’ union cop state-sanctioned suicide?

How, also, would the deep Catholic undercurrent that runs through the caucus deal with new so-called dying with dignity laws when there already are unofficial dying with dignity provisions in

all hospitals?

That’s not to mention the significant numbers of Labor MPs whose families come from war-torn countries or politically unstable economies.

How will they be thinking about state sanctioned suicide?

BRING ON THE BUDGET

There is more than a little bit of disquiet in the federal government about the failure of Malcolm Turnbull’s economic team to deliver.

Tomorrow’s budget is the team’s opportunity to change all that.

Anything less than a gold standard budget will put more pressure on all concerned and potentially send the Coalition packing to the opposition benches.

Now that’s pressure.

Follow all The Australian’s budget coverage here