On Tuesday morning, Eva Lawler will hand down her first budget as treasurer of the Northern Territory.
Many of the finer details, including whether the NT government will post a budget surplus or deficit, are being kept under tight wraps until 10am tomorrow.
Nevertheless, Ms Lawler and her fellow ministers have already announced some details about what projects they will be planning to fund over the next financial year.
Here's what we know, and what we don't, about the NT budget 2023-24.
How big is the NT budget?
Billions of dollars might seem like a lot, but the NT's budgets pale in comparison to those at the federal level or in the bigger states.
Last financial year, the NT government is estimated to have spent $9.27 billion, with the biggest single department being health.
In last year's budget, expenditure was expected to fall slightly, to $9 billion, in 2023-24.
In comparison, the federal government spent over $600 billion in its last budget.
What measures have already been announced?
Cost of living is a key theme of this year's budget, with the government already announcing it is expanding its existing subsidy of household electricity bills by $71.7 million.
It says that is the biggest part of around $200 million in various schemes and measures in the NT budget aimed at relieving cost of living pressures on territory households.
Other items also announced include:
- The Health Department receiving $2 billion in funding in 2023-24, including a new 32-bed ward at the Royal Darwin Hospital, a new morgue and improved sterilisation facilities
- $11.5 million being committed to a full rebuild of the Tennant Creek Watch House
- $20 million over two years for domestic, family and sexual violence prevention and services
- $9.7 million to upgrade the Katherine High School with new "world-class facilities"
- $24 million over three years into a new model of care in youth detention facilities
- $20 million to upgrade the Phelp River crossing in the Big Rivers and East Arnhem region
- $11.5 million in extra funding for the fire service, to recruit more fire fighters, establish a new training centre and buy two new fire trucks
The NT government is also planning to spend $3 million on greening and cooling Smith St in Darwin's CBD.
A similar project on Cavenagh St has been mired by expensive maintenance fees and a lack of shade since it was completed in 2018.
There will likely be much more unveiled in the budget papers when they are published at 10am tomorrow.
What do various stakeholders want to see?
The Northern Territory's Chamber of Commerce, which represents business, is calling for the NT government to trim the size of the public service.
Its chief executive, Greg Ireland, also wants more investment in remote and regional infrastructure to boost trade and economic opportunity.
"It's certainly time for the NT government to demonstrate a long-term commitment to budget repair, particularly in downsizing the public service," he said.
That's a step Unions NT, the NT's peak trade union body, opposes.
"To have cuts to public services employees is a disproved concept: the public sector is the largest employer in the NT and with less employees there is less people spending in the economy," Unions NT Secretary Erina Early said.
"We need a strong public sector to deliver services to Territorians."
Ms Early said Unions NT hoped the budget would focus on resourcing government agencies including education, corrections, firefighters and healthcare, as well as NT Worksafe and the NT Anti-Discrimination Commission.
After the 2022 NT budget last May, unions scored a significant win as strikes and rising inflation forced the Labor government to abandon a pay freeze for public sector workers.
Instead, the government began offering its 24,000 employees a 2 per cent pay increase.
Will there be a budget surplus this year?
The treasurer hasn't yet let slip whether she is about to do what her predecessor Michael Gunner was unable to do: balance the books.
But if projections from last year's budget are anything to go by (and these projections bounce around a lot), the government is expected to post an $80 million deficit in the coming financial year.
But a $255 million increase in the territory's GST allocation this financial year compared with 2022-23 means Treasury might have a surprise in store for us yet.
In the last budget handed down by then-treasurer Michael Gunner, it was forecasted that the NT government would go on to post a $60 million budget surplus in 2024-25.
At the time, Treasury said the NT's GST revenue, increased federal spending and more stamp duty revenue would help get the budget back in the black.
All eyes will be on the updated projections to see whether Mr Gunner's last prediction as treasurer remains on track.
