Spendometer

The Spendometer shows total expenditure on Election commitments for the Australian Labor Party, Liberal Party and the Tasmania Greens. It also provides an important breakdown of recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure. The TCCI is specifically campaigning to minimise additional recurrent expenditure.

How does it work?

The Spendometer only tracks expenditure that will impact on the current 2009-10 Budget and across the Forward Estimates until 2012-13.

Recurrent expenditure relates to the ordinary or day-to-day expenditure of the Government. The major components of recurrent expenditure are salary and administrative and operating expenses, including building services and maintenance and furniture and equipment purchases. It also includes grants and subsidies expenditure and Reserved by Law payments. Recurrent expenditure contributes to the Budget net operating balance.

Capital expenditure relates to the construction, purchase and maintenance of capital assets such as roads, public housing, schools, hospitals and equipment. Capital expenditure contributes for the Budget fiscal balance and does not impact the net operating balance because it is usually a one-off cost impact rather than one which adds to the ongoing cost of Government operations.

Savings relate to election policies that have the effect of reducing committed Budget expenditure and can be deducted from expenditure column to get a net impact on the Budget bottom line.

Notes -

The Spendometer has been developed in consultation with the ALP, Liberals and Greens.

The Spendometer will be updated on a regular basis through the campaign to incorporate the latest available information. TCCI is encouraging all partiers to seek Treasury policy costings and will be incorporating these into the Spendometer.

The TCCI has developed the Spendometer to provide accurate and independent information on the cost implications of election commitments. We welcome feedback and will amend our expenditure figures where appropriate.

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