State's finances first priority for Coalition Government

15/3/93

The Coalition Government's most pressing priority was to put the State's finances in order after a decade of Labor economic mismanagement, Premier Richard Court said today.

"This year the deficit will be more than $400 million dollars and Treasury has estimated that in the next financial year it will be an additional $233 million," Mr Court said.

"It is the Coalition's priority to turn this around, achieving a balanced budget by the end of our first term.

"This will be achieved by an honest evaluation of the State's financial position and prudent government action.

"It will not be achieved by debate in Parliament, unless the Opposition Leader is prepared to come clean with the people of Western Australia and acknowledge that her government managed to blow out State debt by almost $3 billion over the past three years.

"It is about time the Opposition Leader put aside political grandstanding and acted in the best interests of all Western Australians.

"Dr Lawrence seems to have forgotten that only a month ago the people of WA threw her government out of office because they had had enough of the lies and deception which was the hallmark of Labor's WA Inc days," the Premier said.

Mr Court said that, irrespective of which government was in Canberra, the central planks of the State Coalition's election platform remained the same - the creation of jobs and the restoration of business and investor confidence.