The Hidden Costs of Normalised Government Spending in Western Australia Today

The unchecked growth of the Treasurer's Advance

In my time as a GP, I learned that ignoring warning signs in a patient leads to disaster. In my time in this House, I see the same principle apply to our state finances. Today we discussed the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2026. This is meant to be a release valve for genuine, unforeseen emergencies. Instead, it has become a parallel pipeline for government spending, bypassing the normal rigour of the budget process.

The government is asking us to authorise an additional 1.2 billion dollars, taking the total to over 2.4 billion dollars. This is a massive sum of money for which we have little to no detail on the intended spending. When a government enjoys rivers of gold, it should be the gold standard for transparency, not the baseline for opaque decision making. When I looked at the five items mentioned as justification for this expenditure, I could find no cause for objection to the items themselves. The problem is the massive, unnamed residual. We are being asked to provide a blank cheque.

The doctor's diagnosis of fiscal health

I have spent a career understanding the difference between a pulse, a murmur, and an emergency. This mechanism is no longer being used as an emergency response. It is being used to smooth over a lack of foresight. If you are enjoying this reflection on the state of our Parliament, why not subscribe to my YouTube channel for deeper dives into these issues?

When a patient comes to me having self-prescribed medication, I have to intervene. The Parliament is the consultant here, yet the government has effectively removed the consultant from the loop. We should not be relying on retroactive reports to understand where public money has gone. The light of scrutiny is far more effective before the money has left the coffers than it is in a post-mortem report months later. We are facing a structural issue where the mechanism for genuine need has been co-opted for administrative convenience.

Restoring the balance for Western Australians

This is not just about numbers on a page. This is about the trust that the people of this state place in their Parliament. When we see the scale of these requests, we must ask: what are the true priorities? We have thousands of families struggling with the basics, yet we see the government normalising a process that avoids accountability for billions of dollars. This is a fundamental challenge to the role of our House as a place of review and scrutiny.

We can, and should, do better. We need a return to budget discipline where policy areas are funded through transparent debate, not via hidden contingency measures. You can read the full account of the debate in the formal electronic records of the Parliament. If you share the need for more evidence-based, transparent government, I invite you to join the movement with Legalise Cannabis WA as we continue to shine a light on these important issues.