Mr. Love questions the Treasurer's economic management due to repeated requests for additional funding. The Treasurer defends the government's financial performance, citing credit rating upgrades and specific expenditure needs.

AnsweredQoN 85Legislative Assembly
Asked
23 February 2023
Portfolio
Treasurer

QuestionView source ↗

TREASURER'S ADVANCE
85. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Treasurer:
I have a supplementary question.
How can the Treasurer claim to be a good economic manager when this is the
second year in a row that the government has had to come to Parliament and ask
for extra billions of dollars?
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER : It looks like
lots of people want to help you answer, Premier.

AnswerView source ↗

The Western Australian government's
financial management is the best financial management of any government in
Australia by a long, long way. It has been recognised by Standard and Poor's
in relation to our credit rating, as it has
given us a AAA credit rating after the last Liberal–National government
lost it. It said a large part of the reason it restored our credit
rating was, I quote, the ''outperformance'' of the Western Australian
government in managing the finances. That is what S&P Global said. It is
hardly a GetUp!; it is hardly The Guardian . Moody's gave us an
upgrade to our credit rating as well. Both of the major credit ratings for the
world did that for Western Australia because of these things.
But I just outlined to the member a
moment ago what the Treasurer's advance is for. If the member objects
to any of those things, such as funding for
cyclone Ellie or cost escalation on regional roads or the cost of the small
business grants program for COVID relief, he should say that. Which one
of those does he not support? If the member can outline which one he does not
support, we might take him seriously.

Explore WA Government Data

Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.

Explore more