Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the Ten Months Ended 30 April 2007

Dr Peter Bushnell
Deputy Secretary to the Treasury

The Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the ten months ended 30 April 2007 were released by the Treasury today.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Practice, which encompasses approved financial reporting standards that will be applied by the Crown until 30 June 2007. For financial statements beginning on or after 1 July 2007, New Zealand equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (NZ IFRS) will be applied.

The 30 April 2007 monthly financial statements are compared against updated monthly forecast tracks based on the 2007 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update.

$ million	April 2007 Actual YTD	April 2007 Forecast YTD	Variance $m	HYEFU June 2007 Forecast	June 2006 Actual
Residual cash	1,147	893	254	1,720	2,985
Operating balance	6,777	7,157	(380)	6,568	11,473
OBERAC	6,986	7,157	(171)	7,699	8,648
Gross sovereign-issued debt	38,171	37,909	262	37,217	35,461
% of GDP	24.2	24.0	0.2	23.3	22.6
Net core Crown debt	5,014	5,251	(237)	4,612	7,745
% of GDP	3.2	3.3	(0.1)	2.9	4.9
Net core Crown debt with NZS Fund assets	(7,439)	(7,401)	(38)	(8,306)	(2,116)
% of GDP	(4.7)	(4.7)	(0.0)	(5.2)	(1.3)
Net worth	88,538	88,917	(379)	88,460	71,403

The following table outlines the key variances for the year to 30 April 2007:

Item/indicator	Variance	Key drivers
Tax Revenue	- $0.2 billion	PAYE and GST timing issues
Net of sales of goods and services and operating expenses	+ $0.1 billion	Mainly due to lower sales by electricity companies, offset by lower operating expenses
Net investment income	- $0.2 billion	Lower than forecast unrealised gains on NZSF investments ($0.7 billion), offset by NZSF foreign exchange losses being less than forecast by $0.5 billion
Core Crown expenditure (excluding net foreign exchange gains/losses)	+ $0.1 billion	Delays in actual departmental spending of $0.3 billion, offset by top-down adjustment in forecast of $0.2 billion
OBERAC	- $0.2 billion	Mainly due to lower tax revenue, offset by delays in departmental spending
GSID	+ $0.3 billion	Reductions in DMO issuance of Treasury Bills and Government Stock ($0.2 billion), offset by settlement cash level being higher than forecast by $0.4 billion
Net Worth	- $0.4 billion	Operating balance impact of the lower than expected net investment returns and tax revenue, offset by delays in departmental spending
Residual cash	+ $0.3 billion	Delays in departmental spending on operating ($0.2 billion in cash terms), capital ($0.2 billion), offset by top-down adjustment allocation

ENDS

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