Government Financial Responsibility Act 2000

The Treasurer is to release a Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement not later than 31 December in each budget year.

A Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement is to include the following —

financial projections for the Government for the budget year and the 3 following financial years;

an account of the economic and other assumptions on which the financial projections are based;

an explanation of the implications of the financial projections for meeting the financial targets set out in the last Government Financial Strategy Statement;

an analysis of the degree to which the financial projections are likely to be affected by changes in the circumstances on which the economic and other assumptions are based;

a statement of any risks, quantified as far as practicable, that could materially affect the financial projections, including particulars of any contingent liabilities and any government negotiations that have not been finalized;

a certificate by the Under Treasurer under subsection (6).

When preparing a Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement, the Under Treasurer is to take account of the following —

the implications of all relevant decisions that were taken by the Government before the cut‑off date referred to in the certificate under subsection (6) and that are known to the Under Treasurer (excluding any interim decisions taken in the course of planning the budget to be brought down in the next budget year);

any other relevant information available to the Under Treasurer before the cut‑off date noted in the certificate under subsection (6).

The Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement does not have to include commercially confidential information.

If information that is otherwise required to be included in a Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement is excluded because of subsection (4), the statement must contain a general description of the excluded information.

The Under Treasurer is to certify to the effect that —

the financial projections, and the economic forecasts and assumptions, in the Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement were prepared by the Under Treasurer;

the statement takes account of all relevant information available to the Under Treasurer on the cut‑off date noted in the certificate;

the statement sets out the implications of all relevant decisions that were known to the Under Treasurer on the cut‑off date; and

the economic assumptions on which the financial projections in the statement are based were finalized on the date set out in the certificate.

If any information to be included in a Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement under subsection (2) is the same as information included in the last Government Financial Projections Statement to be released then, instead of setting out the information in full, the Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement may include a summary of the information, with a note to the effect that the information is unchanged from the previous statement.

If —

the last financial projections statement released before a Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement is released was a Pre‑election Financial Projections Statement; and

the information to be included in the Government Mid‑year Financial Projections Statement is the same as information included in the Pre‑election Financial Projections Statement,