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Wednesday, February 24, 1971
EXPENDITURE FORECASTS UP TO 1974/75
Innovation In Dreft Estimates
Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Socretary, today drew the attention
of the Legislative Council to an inovation in the draft estimates which
included in the appendices forecast figures of estimated expenditure annually up to 1974/75.
These forecasts showed an increase in rocurrent expenditure from
$2,152 million next year to $2,813 million in 1974/75
per cent in three years.
——
an increase of 30
Capital expenditure was forecast to increase "slightly faster,"
from $784 million next year to $1,068 million in 1974/75. Total expenditure in 1974/75 was forecast at $3,881 million, These figures excluded the
operations of the Development Loan Fund and the Lotteries Fund.
Sir John stressed that the figures were "merely forecasts," not
proposals for the actual appropriation of funds. They had been compiled for
some years in the unpublished Five Year Forecasts of Revenue and Expenditure.
He asked the public's "indulgence" for not including the forecasts
of revenue also. That was "an exercise in crystal-gazing" which he should
not like "to put on public exhibition" for a number of reasons.
/The