Pre-poll voting opens across New South Wales on Saturday ahead of the state election on 25 March.
The premier, Dominic Perrottet, is asking voters to return a Coalition government for a fourth term. Chris Minns is attempting to return Labor to power after more than a decade in opposition.
Here are the key differences between their offerings.
Gambling reforms
Perrottet’s push to introduce cashless gaming cards on poker machines in NSW – and Minns’ resistance to it – has been one of the defining issues of the campaign.
After months of debate and pushback from the powerful clubs lobby as well as some within his own cabinet, Perrottet unveiled a $344m plan to make cashless gaming mandatory by 2028.
The staged rollout – to begin in 2024 – would allow gamblers to set their own spending limits, though they could only be changed once a week.
But Perrottet has also been forced to deny that the former gaming minister Victor Dominello was dumped from cabinet because of his earlier push for gambling reforms.
Labor meanwhile has refused to back the policy, a decision which has drawn the ire of many reform advocates. Instead, the party would appoint an expert panel to run an expanded trial of the technology on 500 machines across the state. Minns has committed to introducing the technology if the panel recommends it.
Labor also announced a suite of policies including a ban on donations from clubs and pubs, a ban on “VIP lounge” signage outside pubs and clubs, and reduced cash input limits on new poker machines.
Housing
Both parties made housing a flashpoint early in the campaign, when Perrottet pushed ahead with his plan to replace stamp duty with an optional land tax for first home buyers on homes worth up to $1.5m.
Despite the scheme – a scaled-down version of what the premier had initially flagged – being voluntary, Labor vociferously opposed the move, labelling it a “tax on the family home”. They then announced their own plan to scrap stamp duty entirely for first home buyers on homes worth up to $800,000, while introducing concessions on homes worth up to $1m.
As the proportion of renters in the voting population has grown, so too has the realisation by the major parties that reform is necessary.
Labor’s rental platform includes a portable bond scheme, a ban on “secret” rent bidding, and the creation of a rental commissioner. The Coalition has committed to its own portable bond scheme, longer leases, and a ban on real estate agents soliciting rent bids.
Both parties have also signed up to their own form of ending no-grounds evictions, although the NSW Tenants Union points out that neither policy is clear on whether that would include fixed-term leases.
Privatisation
Labor has made opposing privatisation one of its signature policies. Although the Coalition government has amassed an impressive record on infrastructure projects by preaching the benefits of “asset recycling”, some of the costs of that approach have started to bite through expensively tolled roads and increasing government debt.
As a result of Labor’s insistent campaigning, the Coalition has been forced to commit to no further privatisation if it is re-elected, a decision which has placed it in a tricky campaigning position.
The government is either lying, Labor’s attack goes, or its $116bn infrastructure pipeline will add significant baggage to NSW’s already hefty debt at a time when borrowing costs are spiralling.
Labor has also promised to establish a state-owned Energy Security Corporation which it says will drive investment in renewable energy projects and lower prices in the state.
Modelled off the federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the $1bn spend is designed to secure energy supply by expanding the role of the state in securing projects.
Cost of living
Soaring energy prices, interest rates and the associated rise in the expense of groceries and other household expenses has put the cost of living front-and-centre throughout the campaign.
The Coalition has sought to address those issues directly though one of its go-to measures: rebates. It has introduced a one-off $250 energy rebate, a series of vouchers to help parents with the return to school and after-school activities, for example, and a $500m road toll relief program that offers rebates of up to 40% on annual tolling, capped at $750 a year.
And while many of the drivers to increasing costs are outside the remit of a state government, the Coalition had also promised to appoint a supply chain commissioner which it says will be tasked with driving down grocery prices by addressing transportation costs.
Labor, meanwhile, has geared its overall message around improving living conditions through promises to give thousands more teachers permanent positions, abolishing the public sector wages cap and introducing its own toll relief scheme which will also see Prof Allan Fels appointed to lead a review into structural reforms of the road system.
Wages
Labor’s plan to abolish the public sector wage cap and listen to the demands of essential workers for more pay has also been a central point in the campaign.
There has been a legislated cap on public sector wages in the state since 2011 and the premier announced it would rise to 3% last financial year, and 3.5% this financial year, depending on productivity gains.
Minns has vowed to scrap the cap in a bid to stop essential workers including nurses and teachers leaving the state for better-paid roles in Victoria and Queensland but this week refused to guarantee they would make more under Labor.
The treasurer, Matt Kean, has said Labor’s policy would “destroy the economy and it will destroy the opportunity we’ve created for the next generation”. The government has insisted their cap represented sound financial management.
The wage cap was one of the main issues that saw rolling strikes by nurses, teachers, paramedics and transport workers across the state last year.
Transport
Much of the campaign has been focused on the plight of commuters in Sydney’s west. The Coalition has pledged $1bn for regional roads and a further $1bn for western Sydney roads.
Labor has promised to invest $1.1bn into road improvements across western Sydney and regional NSW along with $225m to build evacuation roads, bridges and levees in western Sydney for floods.
The Coalition has committed $260m for the businesses cases for four Metro projects including the Westmead to the Aerotropolis and Bankstown to Glenfield via Liverpool lines.
Labor has argued the Tallawong to St Marys and Macarthur to Aerotropolis lines were the most crucial and has not confirmed support for the others.
Feeding into their domestic manufacturing policy, Labor has also vowed to begin the procurement process for a new fleet to replace machines built in the 80s and 90s, building the replacements trains in NSW and creating 1,000 jobs.
Labor has promised to scrap the Northern Beaches tunnel link which has been Coalition policy for years but has been the subject of environmental concerns, continued pushback and agitation by the “teals”.
