We are trying to obtain realistic figures for the cost of running all of the state and territory governments in Australia.
This involves a considerable amount of detailed work and will take some time to complete.
In the interim, we will list here, on a regular basis, the information that has come to hand.
If anyone can help us to obtain the information that we need, we would really appreciate your help.
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We understand that Australia has 594 State and Territory Politicians, broken down as follows:
ACT – 17 NSW – 135 NT – 25 QLD – 89
SA – 69 TAS – 40 VIC – 132 WA – 91
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In NSW In 2003/04, the salaries and allowances for state government politicians was $23,481,000 with an additional cost of $7,776,000 for superannuation.
The total expenses incurred by the NSW Parliament in 2003/04 was $105,327,000
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In Queensland, the salaries and allowances for the state politicians in the 2004/05 budget is $13,589,167.
This sum does not include an estimated $5,000,000 for superannuation. Car, travel, accommodation, and costs incurred by a spouse are not included.
The total expenses of the Parliament for 2003/04 were $61,079,000.
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These are very basic initial estimates and many costs are not yet included.
Quite realistic estimates done by others indicate that the cost per year for state and territory politicians is of the order of ten billion dollars. A further ten billion is incurred by industry (and passed on to you). This cost comes from complying with all the different regulations when a company operates in more than one state.
Figures of this magnitude are quite difficult to grasp. However it means that the privilege of having state and territory politicians costs $20 per week for every man, woman and child in the country!
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It should be noted that all of our figures are sourced from government documents. With our next and following updates we will include a separate DETAILS section. This section will list all source documents and progressively detail all figures as they become available to us.