Hospital and schools the centrepiece of recovery budget

It will be a budget of records. Record spending, a record deficit and record debt. But the Premier and Treasurer Peter Gutwein says he had only one thing in mind when tallying the state’s finances.

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FUNDING for the next stage of the Royal Hobart Hospital redevelopment and a major school building spend will headline the state’s government recovery budget to be announced by Premier and Treasurer Peter Gutwein today.

It will be a budget of records: record spending, a record deficit and record debt.

The 2020/21 state budget will include $89 million for the Royal, plus $40 million for the Brighton High School, $20 million to revitalise Cosgrove High School and $25.3 million for the new K-12 Sorell School, the Mercury can reveal.

Infrastructure will be the centrepiece of the budget — including $2.4 billion in road funding over the next four years.

“We will build the intergenerational infrastructure our state needs to thrive, including more homes, better schools, roads, bridges, irrigation schemes, as well as renewable energy assets, health, housing and justice facilities,” Premier Peter Gutwein said.

Premier Peter Gutwein. Parliament question time in the House of Assembly. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

“We are investing $89.8 million to continue stage 2 of the Royal Hobart Hospital Redevelopment, including an expanded emergency department and intensive care unit, $3.7 million for the pharmacy redevelopment at the RHH, and $19.8 million over two years to build 27 mental health beds in southern Tasmania.

“And $3.4 million has been allocated over two years for the Hobart Safe Spaces homeless accommodation, and $15.9 million for the southeast Irrigation Scheme.”

It is unprecedented to hand down a budget so late in a financial year: this budget was originally scheduled to be handed down in May but the pandemic has played havoc with the state’s finances and with the economic forecasts on which the budget is based.

Mr Gutwein has already revealed that the budget will include a $1.1 billion deficit for the 2020/21 financial year — the biggest in the state’s history — and following

a $338 million deficit recorded in 2019/20.

The state will be $1.8 billion in debt by this time next year.

“This wasn’t about bottom lines, this was about saving lives,” Mr Gutwein said on Wednesday.

“While the budget bottom line will be in the red and for a Treasurer, obviously, that’s not what you’d like to see, I do know very clearly that the investment we’ve made and the spending we have engaged in will put out community back on track.

Mr Gutwein said the road to recovery was through lifting the state’s economy out of the recession caused by the impact of the pandemic.

“The most important thing that you can do to grow revenues is to grow your economy and to ensure that you’ve got confidence and you’ve got investment flowing in and importantly that investments leading to jobs.

“We will certainly be investing tomorrow in this budget.”

Many of the new initiatives in the budget have already been revealed. They include:

• $45 million for improved access to elective surgery.
• $23 million for health information technology systems.
• $17.6 million for improvements to bushfire mitigation, planning and response.
• $6 million for improvements to the state’s biosecurity measures.
• $5 million for Launceston Airport upgrades.
• $1 million for a new hospitality and tourism training provider.
• $4 million for reforming Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• $3 million for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
• 1.8 million for improved court facilities.
• $2.3 million in extra funding for Legal Aid over the next four years.

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