00:02The state budget may have sailed and now Victoria is looking for a safe harbour.
00:06We need to create a reserve of diesel.
00:09The state is buying 10 million litres stored here in Altona, earmarked for the regions if the fuel crisis deepens.
00:16To give farmers confidence for the harvesting season ahead.
00:21It's certainly not a silver bullet and not absolutely everything we need but certainly gives us surety.
00:27The government won't say how much it costs.
00:30Those arrangements are commercial in confidence.
00:33Industry experts estimate it could be as much as 25 million dollars.
00:37It's not accounted for in the budget.
00:39Instead the state is dipping into its financial reserves.
00:42This is a government that continues to use Treasurer's advances far exceeding the way they are meant to be used
00:48for emergency purposes.
00:49Treasurer Jaclyn Symes was out on the hard sell today on the airwaves and to the business lobby defending Victoria's
00:56soaring debt.
00:56It was not my intention to introduce any new taxes.
01:01Business is not thrilled with this budget. Broadly it wanted tax relief.
01:05And a common concern amongst industry leaders here is that business confidence in Victoria is on the decline.
01:10But the Treasurer is adamant that's not the case.
01:13Business investment has increased 44% in the last 10 years in Victoria.
01:17The view not so rosy from economists.
01:19There wasn't a lot in the budget that's really going to help business in the near term.
01:24And nor is there much that was going to really lift productivity.
01:27I do think it was a bit of a missed opportunity on spending.
01:31Economist Stephen Walters echoing the Reserve Bank's call for the government to ease spending to tackle inflation.
01:37The state unrepentant on its free PT and rego rebates.
01:41I think it is absolutely essential, not inflationary, that people can pay for their grocery bills.
01:48The Premier's focus remains firmly on relief and the election.
01:54Ennui buildings are the European subsidies are the same in the beginning and the mother's die in the ahead.
01:54Now we're going to try so much to do well.
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