ACT finances not as bad as thought during wage negotiations

Isn't it interesting how often there's a doom-and-gloom disaster that hits the ACT Government budget situation right about the time they are in enterprise bargaining?

Even more interesting is how their finance department so often finds afterwards that booming land sales have wiped out many of the aforesaid negatives, making things not so desparate after all.

And so it was again, with news that the dire straits to be caused by the $85 million reduction in GST revenue through the Commonwealth Grants would not be quite so bad, due to the booming local economy.

So is the ACT Finance Department guilty of manipulating the PR landscape to help keep a lid on wages, or are they simply pretty crook at doing their job?

A wise guy once told me that faced with the possibility of a conspiracy or a screw-up, err on the side of screw-up every time. And the track record of Finance would tend to indicate this is the most likely. But the niggle of suspicion is there...