Next week’s federal budget will include $64bn in net savings, the Albanese government’s finance chiefs say.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said on Friday that Labor had scraped together the savings by reprioritising funds and trimming spending in key areas, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
“We know that there’s pressures in health, in aged care, in defence, in NDIS, and we already know the decisions we’ve taken around the NDIS to manage some of that pressure and to find savings,” she told a press conference alongside Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
“But next week’s budget will include savings of $64bn in reprioritisations and savings – $64bn.
“This means that since coming to government, we have found total saves and reprioritisations of $178bn.
“In every single budget, we have found savings to return to budget, to reprioritise, to meet those increasing pressures across the government.”
Trimming the NDIS was the biggest source of savings at $35bn alone, she said.
Other areas included restructuring the private health insurance rebate for over 65s and cutting costs in the public service, which combined was worth $5.7bn.
Defence reprioritisations also yielded $5bn.
Senator Gallagher said the “savings will be used to offset investments in those essential services, national security, economic resilience and some of the unavoidable pressures that we’ve had to deal with in this budget”.
Mr Chalmers hailed the savings, which came “in the face of more than the usual amount of global economic uncertainty”.
He also outlined five core elements of the budget.
“It will have five major priorities. First of all, fuel security. Secondly, cost of living and housing,” he said.
“There will be a productivity package, there will be a tax reform package, and there will be a very substantial savings package.
“This is all about making our budget more sustainable over time. It’s about making room for priorities and pressures and making sure that we are saving more than we spend in the budget that we hand out on Tuesday night.”
