NSW swings from deficit to surplus

[zombie]

$1b error: NSW swings from deficit to surplus

Date October 31, 2012 - 1:28PM


Anna Patty

State Political Reporter



Errors are "totally unacceptable" ... Peter Achterstraat. Photo: Bob Pearce

NSW has moved from deficit to surplus due to "totally unacceptable" errors in its accounts, the Auditor-General says.

The government had allowed the budget deficit to bounce around "like a pinball machine", said Peter Achterstraat as he announced a budget result that was $1 billion better than predicted in the 2012-13 budget papers published in June 2012.

An expected deficit of $337 million in the middle of June became a surplus of $680 million by the end of June.

The total revenue was $6 million over budget.

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Mr Achterstraat was critical of government departments, saying they needed to tighten up their budget predictions and financial reporting. He said he was not satisfied with the quality of financial accounts, saying they were "all over the shop".

There were 37 errors of over $20 million each in accounts the Auditor-General's office identified and corrected.

"I would say that a $1 million error is unfortunate, a $10 million error is undesirable but a $100 million error is totally unacceptable," he said.

"This is not acceptable for an entity the size of NSW that manages billions of dollars of assets and public funds.

"There is a lack of effective financial management capability in this state and it must improve.

"The state needs better systems, better processes and appropriately skilled and qualified people to produce the financial information it needs to properly manage public resources."

The Auditor General said Treasury should take steps to improve the accuracy of information it uses to prepare government reports.

The state government is due to revise its budget estimates as part of its mid-year review in December.

The NSW government has revenue of about $60 billion a year and employs nearly 400,000 public servants.


Read more: www.smh.com.au/nsw/1b-error-nsw-swings-from-deficit-to-surplus-20121031-28j8s.html#ixzz2Ar16NWWH

Hey Pim ....you stated conservatives were bean counters...seems this O'Farrell govt has lost it's beans..

[geopol]

The Liberals are either incompetent, lazy, stupid, or corrupt....I suspect al of those, but they do look like untrustworthy idiots who are indulging in a revenge attack on the citizens of NSW with all the cuts to education and health....Bastards all!

[zombie]

Quite so Geo a pack of shifty bastards...Have you ever heard of a government claiming they are in deficit when in a surplus before.??..I havn't..

[zombie]

Now O'Farrell has sacked more workers, affecting NSW farmers, the silly knuckleheads voted for him..teachers, fireman, now DPI workers which will affect the NSW Nth Coast as did closing Grafton Gaol.


NSW farmers will be disadvantaged by O’Farrell cuts Save

Oct. 29, 2012, 9:30 p.m.


The opportunities identified for NSW farmers in the Federal government’s Asian Century white paper could be undermined by the O’Farrell government’s cost cutting restructure of the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI).



I am concerned the significant opportunities outlined for NSW farmers in the white paper will be damaged by the Liberal and National Party’s funding cuts to agriculture and primary industries in NSW.

The Federal government’s white paper details some huge and exciting opportunities for NSW farmers, however, I fear that the O’Farrell government’s decision to amalgamate key primary industries agencies and slash funding and expertise from our state will see NSW farmers miss out.

We know that there will be a 35 per cent increase in global food demand by 2025, and Australia is ideally located to provide the quality produce to meet this demand.

NSW farmers shouldn’t be put at a disadvantage because the O’Farrell government is slashing funding for research and on the ground support from primary industries in this state.

The white paper also highlights the importance of research and making productivity improvements in the agricultural sector to meet new demand in places like China and India.

NSW farmers have a very long and proud record of innovation and are among the world’s most efficient producers. Our record of improvement has been built on farmers’ willingness to innovate and the strength of a century long collaboration between the DPI, researchers and farmers.

The O’Farrell government’s proposed amalgamation of DPI extension services, Catchment Management Authorities and Livestock Health & Pest Authorities is threatening one of these key links between research and on the ground extension officers.


Under the O’Farrell government’s cost cutting plans, DPI agricultural extension officers will no longer be a part of DPI, and will become direct employees of an unknown number of so-called “semi-autonomous” bodies.

The NSW DPI extension officer network has always been intimately linked with DPI and industry research, providing farmers with the latest advice, conducting on the ground trials and providing a direct on farm link to researchers.

Extension officers I am speaking to are telling me that the loss of this direct link is one of their key concerns about the new structure. In the longer term there is a real fear that extension officer’s knowledge could become dated and NSW agricultural innovation could slow significantly.

After last week’s damning report into the Minister for Primary Industries’ handling of the botched Cronulla Fisheries closure, no one can have any confidence in her capacity to manage this much bigger and much more challenging change

[pim]

Did they close Grafton Gaol?

Strewth I can remember Grafton Gaol from back in the days when the cops were chasing Darcy Dugan. That was back in the 1950s and I was a primary school kid at St Joe's Convent School in South Grafton.

Dunno if Darcy was ever locked up in Grafton but I do remember whenever you saw the cops in full flight with sirens blaring the grown ups would say that "they must be after Darcy Dugan!"

I was a little kid and I remember being very impressed by Grafton Gaol. That was where "bad people went". It probably gave a lot of jobs to a lot of people. It was a good idea to decentralise the prison system and spread the jails (pardon me - it's one of the times when I reckon the American spelling makes more sense than the British "gaol" which is just a French loan word which the English spell badly). Don't they have jails in places like Junee, Goulburn, Cooma, Bathurst, Maitland and maybe a few other places whose names escape me? Are they going to close those down too?

[zombie]

Gaol, Jail, Prison or the Clink O'Farrell intends to cut near 900 jobs from courts and Jails. Which effects many programs such as drug rehabilitation for youth. All part of O 'Farrell's 15,000 job cuts in the public service.

What I find galling is the Grafton Jail was a major economic factor for Grafton as was the Nth Coast DPI jobs that went under the axe. The people of the Nth Coast are staunch Nationals supporters and this is how they are paid back in return for supporting a Liberal government ...every time, folks is dumb where I come from.

[pim]

The North Coast is the buckle on the belt of the National Party. Mind you that's changing! Look at the seat of Lyne which is centred on Taree, Port Macquarie and places in between. Doesn't go south to around Raymond Terrace? It used to be solid National Party territory. I've posted before how it was solidly Country Party back when I was at school in that area. The MP then was a Reverend - the Rev Phillip Lucock. Wasn't it also Mark Vaile's seat?

And yet these days it's Rob Oakeshott's seat. He's going to struggle to hold it but I think he and Tony Windsor together are outstanding Independent MPs. In fact if I were living back in NSW I'd be thinking of travelling up to my old childhood stamping grounds at Taree to help on his campaign - even if it just means letterboxing, handling postal vote enquiries and handing out how-to-votes for him on polling day. The Nats may win it back next year but I wouldn't call them a shoo-in to hang on to it forever.

Who's your guy on the North Coast, Zombie? I mean the federal guy? Isn't it a dude with a Dutch name? I'll have to look it up ... Hartsuyker?? Dunno much about him but he hasn't exactly made a splash has he. I have no idea of who the State MPs are. When I was a kid in Taree there was a guy called Weiley (pronounced "eye" not "ee") and a Les Jordan and also Leon Punch - as I remember. But I'm totally out of the loop these days.

Ahhh NSW politics, corrupt it may be but so much more interesting than the moribund SA scene

[geopol]

The terible irony is that the Liberals have taken so quickly to corruption and malfeasance so soon after coming to power....It almost apears as if that was their reason for gettinng the treasury benches into their hands,...So much for their mission against labour which now seems a bit self serviing...

[pim]

Geopol, call me cynical but it seems to me that the Rum Corps still runs NSW.

Except that these days it's factionalised into two large groups: one calls itself the Liberal National Coalition and the other calls itself the NSW Branch of the Labor Party.

Plus ça change ...

[zombie]

The Nth Coast demographic is changing, and it is why blokes like Oakeshott and Windsor were able to win their seats.

The people tired of the fact the Nationals do bugger all for them when in power and Labor tends to shrug the safe seats off as what's the point, though treat the area better than the Nationals.

Hartsuckyer represents us in the Federal arena, nice affable bloke but not the brightest of chaps, easily led.

Stoner and Fraser our other reps..Stoner as useless as tits on a bull and Fraser is a fighter, gained some respect for going into battle for the builders in Coffs Harbour who were being scammed by some developer of public housing projects.

ANyhow like to state more ....just recently had shoulder op...hard to type..

[pim]

Rest that shoulder Zombie. You on pain killers for it?

[geopol]

Verification pim, though I doubt you needed it.

"A corruption inquiry has heard that the awarding of mining contracts to friends of former Labor ministers has robbed the people of New South Wales of assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"In his opening address to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) , Counsel-Assisting Geoffrey Watson SC said the level of alleged corruption had not been seen since the days of the Rum Corps in the early years of European settlement." From ABC website.
..

[zombie]

Just Endone for shoulder Pim...pain is not that great, was expecting a lot worse.

Trade in rum and spirits wasn't corrupt as such to be likend to corruption of politicians to graft and bribes that these shifty mongrels of today get up to.

[geopol]

The rum corps gave their members huge land grants etc, just as that minister has given Obeid farms and coal mines, to the value of about 100 million. Pim is, I belicevbe, quite right in suggesting the culture has not only lingered on but is alive, bright and as disgusting as it was in the early days. It involved bullying too...Look at the demise of the "red hot go" premier who was tossed out after he kicked Mc Donald out of th cabinet. Who did he hurl his anger at but Tripody and Obeid, the ones milking McDonald! This has rocked the State as well as the ALP this afternoon....

[zombie]

Indeed I was a too-ral, li-ooral, li short of a addity with history there Geo..

Not sure about land grants, at the time and free person could stake out a claim for land as long as it was fenced and cleared in those times. Difference now is that the Aboriginal folk are more astute of white mans ways.