West Australian Government announces $3.2 billion surplus

The West Australian government has announced a 3.2-billion-dollar budget surplus slightly lower than forecast.

Transcript

00:00 W.A. government is still flush with cash so naturally we were expecting some cost of living

00:06 relief in this budget and it is coming in the form of electricity credits for W.A. households.

00:12 So every household is getting $400 off their electricity bills.

00:18 It will come in two instalments, the first in July this year, another one in December.

00:23 On top of that, a new announcement is stamp duty exemptions are being expanded for first

00:29 home buyers.

00:30 Currently if you are buying a house at $430,000 you can get an exemption on stamp duty.

00:36 They are expanding that, lifting that threshold to $450,000.

00:40 We were wondering how many houses are on the market at $450,000 these days.

00:44 The Treasurer says that will benefit around 5,000 first home buyers.

00:48 Okay, were there any surprises in the budget?

00:55 Surprises in fact, I think some people were a little bit underwhelmed with the extent

00:59 of the cost of living relief given the government does have yet another budget surplus, $3.2

01:06 billion.

01:08 We are heading into a state election next year so I imagine they are keeping some money

01:13 up their sleeves to spend to splash around in the lead up to that election in March next

01:19 year.

01:20 The other surprise for me in the budget was the rate of population growth in WA.

01:25 It's growing faster than ever before, tip to tick over the $3 million mark next financial

01:31 year and I asked Treasurer Rita Safiotti where all those people are going to live amid this

01:37 housing crisis.

01:38 They have already moved here so that's why we have got extra pressure.

01:43 So what we are seeing is a lot of people coming in and of course not many people leaving at

01:47 this point in time.

01:48 So this is one of our challenges and when you look at the challenges of the strong employment

01:54 market where we are seeing a lot of people wanting to come to Western Australia because

01:58 of the jobs and opportunities.

02:00 So it's a challenge for us and that's why we are trying everything on all fronts, whether

02:06 it's building our homes ourselves, encouraging the private sector to build them, trained

02:10 tradies to go and help build them, whether it's trying to look at the excess capacity

02:15 out there in the market.

02:18 So there are thousands of homes out there that we believe are empty.

02:22 So being able to unlock those would be a huge benefit to our community and that can happen

02:29 relatively quickly in comparison to some other measures.

02:36 That was Rita Safiotti, her first state budget as Treasurer and the last before WA voters

02:41 head to the polls in March next year.

02:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]