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We might leave it there. Thanks for reading our coverage. We’ll have more reporting on the Minns government’s first budget and what it means for people living in New South Wales over the next few days, so stay tuned.
Koalas deserve more, Greens say
The New South Wales Greens have called on the Minns government to meet its pre-election promise to spend $80m to establish a Great Koala National park on the state’s mid-north coast.
The Greens MP Sue Higginson said the government had only committed $1.5m this year’s budget for the national park and a total of $28.5m for the project over the next four years.
Higginson said:
The upgrade of the koala crossing at Appin Road and the Georges River Koala Park have both received almost as much funding at $22.5m and $22.1m respectively.
These are both important projects but this is not what the government promised.
This is unbelievable – we are still seeing logging operations in forests that are critical koala habitat within the area for the Great Koala National Park and now we see the Government is not even committing the money it promised.
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Mining group lashes government for axing regional coalmines
The chief executive of the New South Wales minerals council, Stephen Galilee, says regional mining communities will be hard hit by the budget.
Mining royalties are forecast to deliver the NSW government $13.2bn over the next four years, including $2.7bn from higher coal royalty rates to be introduced from 1 July 2024.
Galilee said this was the single biggest revenue decision taken by the government in this budget, making it “extremely disappointing” that a number of coal mining programs had been cut.
He said:
These cuts will negatively impact mining communities and hinder the development of further long-term regional economic opportunities.
The axed programs the minerals council is displeased by include the resources for regions program, the critical minerals activation program and the coal innovation program.
The Minns government is planning a new critical minerals strategy and has invested money in this budget for critical minerals exploration.
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Parenting group says questions about early educators remain
The chief executive of The Parenthood, Jessica Rudd, says the $10.7bn allocated to early childhood education and care in the budget reflects that the government recognises the sector’s importance.
Rudd welcomed the budget announcements of $500 in fee relief per year for parents of children in three-year-old preschool, $22m to recruit and retain essential early childhood workers and fast-tracking 100 new preschools on public school sites.
But she said the question remained of whether funding for pre-allocated early childhood workforce measures, amounting to about $281m, would go ahead.
Rudd also called on the government to clarify whether the $849m investment in new childcare centres is coming out of an existing $5.7bn fund for universal preschool access in New South Wales.
She said:
Early childhood workers are the cornerstone of achieving reform and delivering a universally accessible and high quality early learning system. You can’t do it without them.
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Housing Now group welcomes housing measures
The alliance of businesses, unions and advocacy groups under the “Housing Now” banner have welcomed the Minns government’s first budget.
The group’s chair, David Borger, said the measures included in the budget were the “first step in a project to solve the housing crisis in New South Wales”.
In a statement, Borger said:
The budget measures announced today need to be followed up with major planning system reform to get shovels in the ground and housing delivered for everyone.
We are very pleased to see one of our key planks has been implemented with the introduction of AI to speed up planning approvals. This project should be a system reform and not merely a pilot.
Read more about the Housing Now group here:
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Peak motoring body welcomes investment in road projects
The NRMA has welcomed the state budget, saying it includes $19.3bn in capital expenditure for transport projects including $8.6bn for roads.
The spokesperson for the New South Wales motoring organisation, Peter Khoury, said these were “important infrastructure projects” that were “vital” for the state’s economy.
Khoury said:
We are also pleased the NSW government has increased funding for integral roads in greater Sydney including Heathcote Road, King Georges Road and Prospect Highway.
Projects funded in Tuesday’s budget praised by the NRMA include $389m for upgrades to Waringah Freeway, $300m for the Sydney Gateway and $434.7m for the construction of the M12 motorway as well as $1.3bn over four years for the Coffs Harbour bypass and $12.3m to complete the Silver and Cobb Highway upgrades.
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Free museum entry on the cards
The Minns government will spend $28.3m over the next four years to provide free general admission to the Australian Museum and Museums of History NSW.
This is being spruiked as a cost of living crisis measure. “We are supporting families doing it tough,” John Graham, minister for the arts, said.
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Greens flag $700m in flood relief ‘missing from budget’
The New South Wales Greens disaster relief spokesperson, Tamara Smith, says the $150m in the budget for northern rivers and central west flood recovery falls far short of the $800m the premier, Chris Minns, committed before the election.
Smith, who represents the seat of Ballina in the New South Wales northern rivers region, which is still recovering after parts of it were wiped out during flooding last year, says the government needs to spend more to ensure residents can receive a buyback, house-raise or retrofit.
She said:
The Greens welcome the additional $100m in spending on the Resilient Homes Program announced in the budget today.
I am deeply, deeply disappointed and devastated to see that the additional $700m in spending required to fully fund the flood recovery is missing from Labor’s budget.
The premier has made a commitment that 6,000 buybacks, retrofits and raises will be required to protect flood-affected homes in the northern rivers – but today, Labor have only delivered an eighth of the funding required to deliver that support.
Smith has united with the Byron Bay comedian Mandy Nolan, who is trying to snatch the federal electorate of Richmond from Labor for the Greens, to call for more action in this space.
Nolan condemned the federal government for what she said was a failure to pitch in funding for a second tranche of flood recovery in the northern rivers and called on it to immediately deliver the “remaining” $700m required.
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S&P says NSW needs discipline to return to surplus
Ratings agency S&P said on Tuesday that debt levels remained “manageable” for the New South Wales government while the state’s anticipated return to surplus next financial year was “easier said than done”.
The ratings agency said restraint was needed to put the budget into the black in 2024-25.
“A return to a nonfinancial public-sector operating surplus in 2025 is contingent on strong fiscal discipline to curtail increases in operating expenses,” S&P said.
The Minns government did not announce any new major infrastructure projects in today’s budget amid an already packed pipeline inherited from the former Liberal administration.
Debt levels are expected to rise every year during the forward estimates period to 2026-27, albeit at a slower pace than what was predicted at the pre-election budget update.
NSW has a top-tier AAA ratings with Fitch and Moody’s and a lower-tier AA+ rating from S&P.
The S&P note on Tuesday included the agency’s initial reaction to the budget, but did not represent a ratings decision.
Budget promises to help stop ‘ghost buses’ in Sydney
Commuters across Sydney have grown frustrated at the phenomenon of “ghost buses”, where scheduled services don’t appear in transport apps.
The transport department will spend $15.8m on a Public Transport Information and Priority System “to improve real time bus tracking for passengers … This investment will help end ghost buses and improve the reliability and confidence of passengers,” Jo Haylen, the transport minister, said.
The government has already launched its bus industry task force to address industry concerns, including that private bus providers were cancelling these ghost services to avoid damaging their performance metrics that form part of their contracts with the government.
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Greens dismiss government’s housing plan as ‘window dressing’
The NSW Greens housing spokesperson, Jenny Leong, has accused the government of using inflated housing prices to prop up a budget that provided little to renters and people living in housing instability.
In a statement, Leong said:
The state budget is entirely dependent on increasing house prices – pushing house prices up improves NSW budget position, the budget has been saved by the housing crisis –- and yet who is ‘saved’ and who ‘pays’ for this incredibly cooked system?
Renters are being hit hardest – as are those who are homeless or facing risk of homelessness and yet what is being offered to invest in social housing and specialist homelessness services has been described by Homelessness NSW as little more than window dressing.
Leong said the budget was missing “immediate relief for those languishing on social housing waiting list”.
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Budget includes millions for mining expansion in NSW
The state budget includes $27.5m for geological survey work to expand mining in New South Wales by “encouraging exploration” of critical minerals and energy resources.
The government says NSW is home to 17 of 26 nationally identified critical minerals - which are required for manufacturing new technologies but are subject to supply chain risks - including “significant “deposits of copper, silver and scandium.
The budget papers say the funding included in the 2023-24 budget for survey work will help define areas of mineral or energy resource potential and provide focus for mining and exploration companies.
The announcement of the new funding comes after the government announced plans to develop a new critical minerals and high-tech metals strategy.
The government has also committed $113m over four years for mine work health and safety and $48.5m over four years to reduce risks from what it calls “legacy mines”.
Community housing body responds to ‘extremely disappointing’ budget
The head of the Community Housing Industry Association, Mark Degotardi, has described the state budget as “extremely disappointing”, noting it lacked “substantial new money towards building more social and affordable housing homes” when families needed help.
He said the government’s plan to deliver about 1,400 “affordable” homes by 2040 meant people in need would be left waiting.
He said:
That is roughly 80 affordable homes a year, at a time when the unmet housing need in NSW stands at over 220,000 homes. It is a drop in the ocean – it wouldn’t even meet the projected demand in any one of Sydney’s LGAs, let alone the statewide demand.
He said the government had missed a “perfect opportunity” to show the people of NSW that the new government was serious about solving the housing crisis.
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Australia’s peak body for the tourism and transport industries says it is disappointed by the Minns government’s decision to cut funding for the New South Wales destination agency in the state budget.
The chief executive of the Tourism and Transport Forum, Margy Osmond, said she was concerned the reduction to Destination NSW’s marketing budget could affect the recovery of the state’s international tourism sector following the pandemic.
In a statement, Osmond said:
Reduced funding for marketing at Destination NSW will make it harder to market Sydney and regional NSW as a travel destination, potentially meaning fewer visitors from across Australia and overseas.
We’re facing one of the most competitive global tourism markets we have ever seen and with other states maintaining their funding for tourism marketing agencies, NSW risks falling behind.
Osmond welcomed the extra funding for arts, culture and public transport included in the budget.
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Boost for music industry and nightlife in Wollongong, Central Coast and Newcastle
Tens of millions of dollars will be given to the 24-hour economy commissioner to allow the office that has worked to develop nightlife in Sydney in recent years to replicate its work around the state.
The government has allocated $26.8m to be spent this financial year to expand the office to Wollongong, the Central Coast and Newcastle “to build vibrant, safe, and diverse night-time economies in those regions”. “We are committed to getting the framework right to revitalise our cities with inclusive and safe precincts,” John Graham, minister for the nighttime economy, said.
A new body called “Sound NSW” will also be established and a Music Scene Plan developed to support contemporary music. “Festivals need a secure pipeline of creative talent and workers”, Graham, who is also arts minister, said as he announced $31.2m to fund these initiatives for one year.
Hospitals to offer free parking … but only in regions
Paid parking at hospitals will be a thing of the past at rural and regional healthcare centres, to the cost of $19m.
“Accessing essential health care will be made easier with free parking ... for staff, patients and families,” the government said – except in cities. The free parking policy will not apply at city hospitals.
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Oyster festival and other regional events among budget winners
The Narooma Oyster Festival and Great Southern Nights are among the regional festivals that will share in a new pool of funding for events in New South Wales announced in Tuesday’s budget.
The government says it will spend an additional $41.3m in the 2023-24 financial year on events, with the full list yet to be disclosed.
The funding is in addition to money already earmarked for events in Sydney and regional NSW such as Vivid, Mardi Gras and Sydney Festival.
Tuesday’s budget papers also hint at the government’s hopes to host more world cups after the success of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier this year.
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Key event
Coalition responds to Labor’s first budget in more than a decade
The NSW opposition leader, Mark Speakman, has accused the government of failing to be clear about how it will pay for measures in its budget.
Holding a press conference at NSW parliament after the budget was handed down earlier on Tuesday, Speakman said:
This is a budget built on quicksand.
This is a budget built on dodgy assumptions about expenditure.
He said the government had put unions above families in failing to provide significant cost of living relief.
NSW opposition leader Mark Speakman says: “This is a budget built on quicksand. This is a budget built on dodgy assumptions about expenditure.” #nswpol pic.twitter.com/RQh2V0puvU
— Tamsin Rose (@tamsinroses) September 19, 2023
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Housing measures will barely touch the sides, peak homelessness body says
Homelessness NSW says the Minns government’s $224m housing package “amounts to crumbs” given the scale of the state’s homelessness and housing affordability problems.
The peak body’s acting chief executive officer, Amy Hains, said the $5.9m for homelessness services included in the state budget fell far short of the $50m they needed over two years.
New South Wales does not need more vehicles for housing and homelessness finance; we need direct investment – now.
Social housing has suffered from decades of underinvestment. The $70m to build more social and affordable housing, and $35m to maintain existing stock barely scratches the surface of what’s needed to reverse this.
NSW has a shortage of 221,500 social and affordable homes, rents are hitting record highs and demand for homelessness services soared 10% in the first three months of this year, Hains said.
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Sydney casino bailout to cost government $432m in lost revenue
The Minns government’s decision to bail out Sydney’s embattled The Star casino is set to cost it nearly half a billion dollars in lost revenue over the next four years.
The government revealed in August it would lower taxes for casinos in New South Wales by slashing a planned increase to the casino duty that the former Coalition government had announced eight months earlier.
While the move has resulted in lower taxes for all casinos in the state, the budget papers released on Tuesday say the Minns government made the decision to ensure The Star’s “ongoing financial viability”.
The budget papers reveal the government expects its decision to lower casino taxes is expected to cost it $432m in lost revenue over the next four years, with a forecast reduction in annual revenue of between $96m and $121m until 2026-27.
Labor is expecting to collect $1.5bn less in overall gambling revenue than was forecast before the March election. The government says the revised figure is a result of the lower casino tax rates, as well as a reduction in pokies use in both clubs and hotels and a “more subdued outlook” for Sydney’s casinos.
In December the Perrottet government announced increases to casino tax rates. However, the Minns government has said subsequent Treasury analysis of The Star’s “financial situation” indicated those previously announced rates could threaten the casino’s ability to stay open.
In August the Minns government announced the revised casino duty rates, which it says will still increase tax revenue in a way that is “consistent” with ensuring The Star keeps its doors open.
In Tuesday’s budget papers, the government says that, in return, The Star promised to protect about 3,000 jobs over the next six years and contribute to the industry transition to cashless gaming.
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Social services body says urgent support still needed for people living in poverty
The peak social services body in NSW, the NSW Council of Social Service, has expressed disappointment at the budget for those doing it tough.
The council’s chief executive, Joanna Quilty, said:
As cost-of-living pressures ramp up and the affordable housing crisis grows, we need urgent, increased investment in front-line supports such as neighbourhood centres, tenants advice, domestic violence services, financial counselling and mental health supports.
We acknowledge the significant financial pressures the NSW government is currently under, but this budget does not do enough to help those barely hanging on.
She said the investment in social and affordable housing “barely scratches the surface”.
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Budget reveals NSW drivers expected to avoid $226.2m in speeding fines
Tuesday’s budget reveals New South Wales drivers are expected to avoid tens of thousands of fines over the next four years because of the reintroduction of warning signs around speed cameras.
The budget papers show the government expected the decision to reintroduce the signs and the subsequent reduction in fines would result in a substantial loss in revenue over the next four years.
The forecast revenue from all fines issued in NSW was revised down by $226.2m over the four years to 2026-27 compared with what the previous government had been expecting before the election in March.
The reduction was “primarily due” to revised expectations on infringement volumes for the mobile speed camera program resulting from the reintroduction of warning signage, the budget papers said.
The treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, said:
It shows just how lucrative it was for the previous government in taking the signs down.
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NSW treasurer challenges federal government to extend GST ‘no worse off guarantee’
The New South Wales treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, has in his first budget challenged the federal government to extend the current Goods and Services Tax “no-worse off guarantee” beyond its current expiry date in 2027.
The then federal Coalition government introduced the guarantee in 2018 to ensure no state would be worse off, following the introduction of a GST floor that meant every state would receive at least a 70% share of the GST revenue collected within in its borders.
The GST floor was introduced following lobbying from the West Australian government, which argued it was not fairly benefiting from the GST carve-up, given it contributed a significant amount to Australia’s overall GST revenue during mining booms but received as little as 30 cents back from every dollar it put in.
In the budget papers released on Tuesday, the NSW government warns that the slated expiry of the no worse off guarantee in 2027-28 will affect its forecasting for the first time in its next budget, which is due to be handed down next year.
The government also warns that the end of the guarantee would be “disastrous”, risk essential services and require “inefficient taxes” to be reintroduced.
“Given the serious damage that would be caused, and the Australian government’s commitment to essential services, it is not credible that the no worse off guarantee should end,” the budget papers say.
“Therefore, future budget planning will be made on the assumption the GST no-worse off guarantee continues.”
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Committee for Sydney unimpressed by high speed rail cuts
Think tank the Committee for Sydney is not pleased with confirmation that New South Wales will drop its plan to go it alone in building fast rail to connect Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
Eamon Waterford, the committee’s chief executive, said:
While not entirely unexpected, this decision puts at risk all the potential of a genuine six-city mega region to drive Sydney’s competitiveness on a global scale.
It’s now critical that the federal government and High Speed Rail Authority step in to fund this critical intergenerational infrastructure.
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Fast rail axed as part of $2.5bn in infrastructure cuts
Announced with a bang but killed off quietly, Tuesday’s budget provided official confirmation that New South Wales’s go-it-alone approach to building fast rail between Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong has been shelved entirely.
Fast rail was a flagship policy that former premier Gladys Berejiklian announced in the lead up to the 2019 state election as a way to spread population growth across greater Sydney and its neighbouring regions. The former Coalition government launched the strategy saying it didn’t want to wait for a federal plan to materialise, with numerous high speed rail plans having failed to get off the ground in recent decades.
Guardian Australia first reported the former Coalition government had gone cold on the fast rail plan late last year, despite spending about $100m on studies for the project.
In the first NSW budget since then, the new Labor Minns government has identified that the program – which was expected to have cost in the tens of billions – “should no longer proceed ... to get the state’s infrastructure pipeline back on stable footing”. Or, according to budget papers, the fast rail program has been “de-scoped”.
Shelving the duplication of the Great Western Highway, the new Dungowan Dam and pipeline augmentation and the Wyangala Dam wall raising will also help the state government cut $2.5bn in spending.
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Lack of housing showstopper may leave voters underwhelmed
After taking a close look at the Minns government’s first budget, my colleagues, Tamsin Rose and Jonathan Barrett have written that Labor risks underwhelming voters when it comes to the housing crisis.
Housing was presented as a centrepiece of what was ultimately a pretty fiscally conservative budget. The treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, spent much of his first budget press conference explaining how a modest $300m direct investment in the state-owned Landcom to build fewer than 5,000 homes over the next 16 years would shift the dial.
He said it was “just the start” and pointed to the $2.2bn overall spend on housing in the budget, mostly for infrastructure that would enable future growth.
You can read Guardian Australia’s full analysis here.
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Greens praise public sector wage cap lift but call for higher taxes on ‘vested interests’
The Greens have responded to Labor’s first New South Wales budget in more than a decade by calling for higher taxes on the gambling, coal, property and banking industries.
The NSW Greens finance and treasury spokesperson, Abigail Boyd, praised the Minns government for lifting the public sector wages cap but said it wasn’t “fair” for Labor to frame what was otherwise a “lack-lustre austerity budget” as the “price that had to be paid for that wages correction”.
In a statement, Boyd said the government could raise an additional $2bn every year through a “handful of modest revenue measures”.
Labor have found themselves trapped in a prison of their own making, managing the budget within the bounds of a relatively stable revenue base.
What the people of NSW need right now is a government prepared to finally stand up to vested interests and end the special treatment that has allowed these industries to avoid paying their fair share for far too long.
Boyd is calling for a bigger increase to coal royalties, a levy on windfall profits made by the big banks from higher home loan repayments, changes to payroll taxes for the big four accounting firms, a pokies “supertax” and higher taxes for developer-landowners.
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The New South Wales Labor government will invest $2.2bn in housing and infrastructure projects, including new roads and schools, as it hands down its first budget in more than a decade.
The government has forecast a $7.8bn deficit this financial year, before posting a string of modest surpluses, bankrolled by its big twin revenue streams of property and payroll taxes.
The state’s booming property market will see stamp duty revenue increase as property owners who had delayed decisions to buy during the pandemic and inflationary period return to the market.
Budget figures revealed NSW was expected to be back into the black next financial year and would focus on paying down debt after finding $13bn to redirect into essential services through an expenditure review.
The treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, said his government was trying to rebuild a buffer for future financial shocks, like natural disasters.
“We’re putting aside that money for a rainy day,” he said.
Within its headline housing spend, the government pledged to build almost 5,000 homes through Landcom by 2040.
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Welcome
Good afternoon, I’m Catie, and I’ll be bringing you all the news on today’s budget.
The New South Wales Labor government has vowed to invest $2.2bn in housing and infrastructure projects, including new roads and schools, in its first state budget in more than a decade.
Our team will be covering what’s in the budget, and the reaction as it rolls in.
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