Appendix 1: Environment Expenditure
Table A1: Environment Activities - programme and tax expenditure estimates(1)
- denotes nil; na denotes not available; ..denotes not zero, but rounded to zero.
(1) Care needs to be exercised when comparing estimates for 2002-03 and estimates for forward years and when making comparisons between this edition and previous editions of the Environment Budget Statement. From 1 July 2003 the Government will discontinue the Capital Use Charge (CUC). The Commonwealth introduced, as part of the accrual budgeting reforms in 1999-2000, a CUC. The CUC was paid annually by general government sector agencies on their net assets. The CUC is an internal government transaction and therefore, does not affect the budget balances as the payment is offset by a departmental appropriation.
The discontinuation of the CUC has the overall impact of lowering estimates of expenditure for programmes in 2003-04 and beyond. It does not have any impact on actual programme funding, as it is an accounting adjustment. In the 2002-03 Budget, the estimated total CUC and dividends for all agencies was $6.5 billion. This is equivalent to 3.8 per cent of the total estimates of the Commonwealth general government expenditure of $170.2 billion. Using this proportional percentage, as a rough guide, the CUC portion of the 2002-03 environmental expenditure would be around $54 million. This is likely to be an understatement as the provision of environmental services frequently requires a higher proportion of capital stock (eg in National Parks, to support Antarctic research, and to conduct surveillance of illegal fishing) than general government services. For example, the environment elements of the environment portfolio alone have a CUC of over $46 million for 2002-03.
There has also been a significant change in the way in which direct and indirect environmental expenditures are accounted for under Australia's foreign aid programmes, which means that it is not appropriate directly to compare estimates published for 2002-03 and previous years with those for 2003-04 and beyond.
* Total expenditure for this theme does not include additional NHT expenditure that relates to these environment themes.
- Decline in Parks Australia's expenditure is primarily due to removal of the CUC ($11.5 million - see footnote (1)) and revised accounting for services received from Environment Australia.
- Total for 2003-04 reduced by $1.8 million for NAP administration which is already included in the NAP total.
- The Australian Customs Service estimate comprises funding for the output within Customs that provides environmental services as part of the activities associated with civil maritime surveillance.
- New measure. Provision of funding is contingent on passage of legislation before Parliament.
- The process by which corporate overheads are attributed to Divisional outputs was changed for the 2003-04 Budget. This has resulted in a lower level of overheads being applied from 2003-04.
- Estimated expenditure on environmental activities undertaken by the BoM. This is approximately 5 per cent of the total BoM expenditure including the renewal of the World Class Weather Forecasting initiative.
- Estimates for 2002-03 and previous years are not directly comparable with 2003-04 as these estimates were derived using a revised and more rigorous methodology. In 2003-04, the Government will provide an estimated $95 million for activities that directly address environment problems in developing countries together with an additional $225 million of indirect expenditure. These figures now incorporate aspects of expenditure related to water supply, fisheries and agriculture not identified as environmental outlays in previous years.
- GVEHO is under review during 2003-04.