The Northern Territory has by far the highest financial dependency on the Federal Government of all the states and territories.
This is despite frequent derogatory references by its political leaders to interference from “”Canberra” and the need to get government out of people’s lives.
In 1998-99, the NT will take $5400 per head in general Commonwealth financial assistance, more than five times the average of $950 per head.
The ACT, Qld and WA are all roughly on the average; SA is about 20 per cent over; Tasmania about 80 per cent over and NSW and Victoria are each about 15 per cent under.
These grants total about $17 billion a year. A further $14 billion is distributed in specific-purpose grants where the Commonwealth determines the use. The distribution of this $14 billion is roughly in accordance with population for all states and territories except the NT which gets about double the amount its raw population would warrant.
As to debt, the NT is the second-worst performer (Tasmania is worst). The NT’s debt is about 25 per cent of Gross State Product, compared to the ACT at about 1.5 per cent and NSW, Victoria and WA under 10 per cent, SA on 20 per cent and Queensland in the black by 5 per cent.
So even if the NT gets political autonomy, it will retain substantial financial dependency for some time to come.