PM. No 26/1962
At the Premiers' Conference today, the Premiers accepted a Commonwealth offer to pay financial assistance grants to the States in the present financial year as follows:
New South Wales œ 99,2499000
Victoria 73,01, 000
Queensland 43,730,000
South Australia ' 3,225,000
Western Australia 30,085,000
Tasmania _ 12 83 o
œ 292,140,000
These grants include special payments to Victoria
C1,024,000); Western Australia (œ 339,000) and Tasmania (œ 97,000),
These amounts represent the difference between the grants those
States expected to receive on the basis of estimates of their
population before the census results were known, and the
Statistician's official determination of the grants payable for
this year on the basis of the census results. The Commonwealth,
in offering to make up those amounts this year, took account of
the fact that these States had based their Budgets for the current
financial year on the estimated, and not the finally determined
figureos Under the Statistician's final determination, the other
three States receive more than the grants estimated in relation to
them at the beginning of the current financial year, as follows
New South Wales œ 175,000
Queensland œ 1,003,000
South Australia 43,000
In effect, the Commonwealth's offer was on a " no loss"
principle, each State being offered either the full amount of its
now entitlement under the cunsus results, or its full expectation
under the earlier estimated population figures.
The States regarded this offer as eminently fair,
As the census result showed that estimates of Victoria's
population had been considerably overstated, the application of
the Statistician's final determination for 1961-62 to the formula
grant for Victoria over the remaining three years of the 1959
Agreement would have caused a considerable reduction in the
grants payable to that State for those years. It was agreed that,
for the purpose of calculating Victoria's grant for the next
three years, a new " base amount" of œ 72,730,000 should be
adopted. CANBERRA,
16th February, 1962.