Next month’s State Budget will struggle to meet community expectations with a survey released today by the South Australian Council of Social Service showing that most South Australians want a boost to public spending, particularly on health, education and community services. At the same time the public wants lower state taxes, and with a forecast decline in real terms in the coming years in Government revenue and expenditure, there is no way this can add up.
SACOSS CEO Ross Womersley: “We analysed the survey results about what people wanted alongside the last Budget figures and it is clear that the desire for more spending on infrastructure and public services can’t be met with current levels of taxation, and reducing waste won’t contribute much either. So there is a hard choice for the government and the community – we either accept poorer infrastructure and lower levels of services, or (as Scott Morrison recently found out federally) we need to look at our tax system.”
SACOSS commissioned Mint Research to survey 1000 South Australians with the results showing that 68% of respondents wanted to see more spent on government services overall, including 26% who wanted “a lot more spent”.
Of the seven broad areas of government spending surveyed, spending on industry support was the only area where there was not majority support for more spending.
SACOSS CEO, Ross Womersley said, “The survey showed strong public support for more government spending, especially in key areas like health, education and community services. There was almost no support for cutting funding for those services to address Budget pressures.”
“Health, education and community services already account for 62% of government operational expenditure, but with cuts to services in some areas still being experienced, it is no surprise that the public expressed desire for more funding in those areas.”
Perceptions of Government waste
The survey also highlighted significant concern in the community that the government was wasting money.
More than half of respondents thought the state government was not giving good value for the tax dollar, although when asked for examples of government waste only 43% of respondents provided examples.
Of those who did identify areas of waste, 72% highlighted public infrastructure projects. The RAH, O-Bahn extension and Adelaide Oval upgrade topped the list of suggested “waste”, but the list included almost every high-profile capital expenditure project in the last decade.
Reflecting on these perceptions of waste, Ross Womersley said, “Obviously cutting waste is a good thing, but seeing any infrastructure project a person disagrees with as simply a waste is a problem.”
“One person’s waste is another person’s vital infrastructure, and reducing infrastructure to individual use undermines the collective benefit we all get from public infrastructure.
“And the numbers also don’t add up in the way people think they do. Capital expenditure is only 7% of state government expenditure and most of the individual examples constitute only a fraction of 1% of expenditure in any year, so seeing infrastructure as waste risks undermining vital capital works for little gain to the overall budget position.”
SACOSS has produced a fact sheet on SA government spending and waste.
Download the SACOSS report “Reality Check: Public Perceptions of South Australian
Published Date:
Sunday, 21 May 2017