AUSTRALIAN FINANCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 July 1925, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN FINANCE.

COST OF GOVERNMENT

NEAR lA’ £70,0U0,000 A YEAR

Some amazing figures concerning the cost of administration of the whole oi the Commonwealth are contained in the annual financial report of the Commonwealth Statistician (A 1 r. C. H. Wicitens) for 1923-24. which was issued recently. The cost of Government was (lfiS.3-l-.774. or nearly £3,51K).(>0() more than i%' has ever previously cost. The most cxnensive department was that of the Postmaster-General, which absorbed T<).273,-194. The Treasury* next on the list, cost .U 5,034,481).

The expenses of Parliament amounted to £‘33(3.012. of which Minister’s allowances accounted for £13.569. Senators’ salaries £35.312. and those of members of the House oi Representatives, £74.359. Parliamentary officers and staff cost £61,418. while travelling of members and “others’’ .was responsible for the expenditure of £20,200. The Prime Minister’s Department. which was established during Mr. Hughes’s regime, consumed £1.094,661. tlie largest item being £542,-518. which represented the interest and sinking fund on Commonwealth securities. The expenditure on immigration was £66.866. but the item “miscellaneous” in the Prime Minister’s Department expenditure accounted for £203,686. Over £34.<KX> was spent as Australia’s share of the maintenance of the Secretariat of the League of Nations. For the administration of the Trade and Customs Department, £1.627.818 disappeared from the Commonwealth coffers, but the huge revenue from the tariff is set- agsffnst the Customs expenditure. Close on £1.600.000 was needed for Commonwealth defence, but in addition to this the Navy Office cost £2.084.419 and air services £22-2.657. The Commonwealth debt, at the end of the last financial year, stood at £415,600.009. of which £142.524.394 was owed to London, and £273.075.700 to Australian lenders. One of the features of the Federal Ministry’s legislative programme during the present session, which onened on Wednesday of last week, is its financial measures. Tt is expected that the Treasurer (Dr. Page' will have a surplus of about £3.*500,090 from the current year’s financial operations. The question which is agitating the public mind is. what effect will this surplus have on the finances for 7925-26. It is variously Cited that the Federal income taxation will be further reduced, with a view to the Commonwealth’s eventual evacuation of the field of direct taxation, and that the taxation will remain as it. is at piesent. with the idea ot producing a surplus again. *to. he devoted to reduction of the public debt That is Dr. Page’s intention in regard to the current year’s surplus, which was mainlv produced front Customs receipts, hut so far he ha s given no definite indication of what the public is hoping will happen —reduction of income taxa. tion.