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Indicator: HS-80 Environmental expenditure

Data

Sanitation and protection of the environment ($m)

	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
New South Wales	344	351	452	375	441
Victoria	74	65	223	166	252
Queensland	100	117	79	76	88
South Australia	82	105	109	130	224
Western Australia	63	58	42	48	55
Tasmania	13	13	13	14	4
Northern Territory	6	5	1	2	2
Australian Capital Territory	21	15	15	12	22
Total All States	701	730	934	823	1,087

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006, Government Finance Statistics, ABS, Canberra.

Major agency contributions to environment-related estimated expenditure 2004-05 to 2005-06, Australian government, $million

Department/Agency	2004-05	2005-06
DEH	472.8	528.0
DAFF	137.8	187.9
Joint DAFF/DEH	389.0	470.3
Subtotal DAFF/DEH	999.6	1186.1
DOTARS	405.2	423.4
AusAID	278.0	305.0
NWC	56.9	283.0
Customs	2790.	270.2
CSIRO	231.3	207.7
ATO	71.0	74.0
DEST	55.2	59.6
Other (Agencies not separately listed)	308.3	343.2
Total	2685.2	3152.2

Source: Department of the Environment and Heritage 2006, Environment Budget Overview 2005-06, viewed 5 Jun 2006, http://www.deh.gov.au/about/publications/budget/2005/ebo/index.html

• Environmental Expenditure: Local Government 2003-03 (PDF - 868 KB) 
• Government Finance Statistics (PDF - 1.2 KB) 

What the data mean

At $4.6 billion in 2002-3, local government environmental expenditure accounted for more than half of total environmental spending across Australia’s three spheres of government. Environmental work accounts for more than a quarter of local government total annual expenditure, six per cent of State and Territory government, and one per cent of Australian government spending.

There have been increases in expenditure in most States and Territories. However, according to a 2005 survey, only 31 per cent of councils considered that they had a comprehensive or good capacity to take up natural resource management initiatives.

Australian government environmental expenditure, for all agencies, has increased each year since 2001-2002.

Issues for which this is an indicator and why

Human Settlements — General responses provided to improve the environment - Environmental expenditure 

While it is the reasoned use of public money and the effectiveness of that use that are the real indicators of the public response to environmental issues, trends in total government expenditure is an indicator of the increasing or decreasing seriousness of public concern.