Acknowledgement and introduction
I am on the land of the Gadigal. So I offer my respect to the Gadigal’s elders: past and present.
Speaker –
The Budget I present to you, here in the people’s house, is a Budget driven by our people’s concerns.
The concerns of our families who today pay more for their mortgages, more for their groceries, more for their fuel, and more every time a bill arrives.
The cares of our workers and businesses, who have seen a war on the other side of the world push up the price of oil, and the price of oil push up the price of nearly everything else.
They are the people who this Budget is for.
And they are the people who this Budget is about.
People who have been told by some that during this time of great global uncertainty, they are fated to be mere bystanders to great global events.
That when the world turns rough, the best they can do is turn their backs, wait and hope for the latest economic storm to pass.
But Speaker – you know, I know, we know – that NSW did not become the premier state by being a state of bystanders.
We do not inherit our fate.
We choose it.
And today the fate we choose is to go on building the best state for working families.
The state where those who work for a living, earn a living.
The state whose businesses are built to compete with the best in the world.
Whose universities educate the brightest minds on the planet.
Where generations of migrants who arrive with little more than courage, grit and determination can build extraordinary lives for themselves, their families and our country.
Above all –
Today we choose to continue building a state working Australians can afford.
That simple premise is our Government’s central purpose.
It drives this Budget’s strategy:
Relief for today. Reform for tomorrow. And discipline always.
With help to begin at the bowser.
Cost of living
Rego
Speaker –
Many families are feeling the shock of the global oil crisis most sharply at the petrol pump.
Our people have been paying an average of $1.91 a litre this year.
More in the regions.
More again for diesel.
Much higher than before conflict in the Middle East drove oil prices higher.
It is true that the price of oil is set far from this place.
But the price to register a vehicle is decided right here.
We set the price.
We can cut the price.
We will cut the price.
So, from July 21, this Labor Government is cutting vehicle registration by $100 for every private car and $80 for every private motorcycle for the next 12 months.
Relief worth $435 million.
Help for more than 4.4 million motorists.
And that is just the start.
Opal fares
For the 4.2 million people catching a train, a bus or a ferry each month, we are freezing your fares.
For the next 12 months, you will not pay a cent more for public transport than you do today.
Not on trains. Not on buses. Not on ferries.
Other prices might rise. Ours will hold. That is a choice too.
Tolls
There is another choice this Government is making. It concerns the cost of using Sydney’s toll roads.
For years, Sydneysiders were told that if they wanted new motorways, they had to accept privately-owned toll roads.
That was the trade-off.
The previous government signed the contracts.
Private operators collected the tolls.
And motorists paid the price.
That is how Sydney became the most tolled city in the world.
This Government – the Minns Labor Government – has always said no to that bargain.
So, in our first Budget, we introduced a $60 weekly toll cap.
Last year, we made that cap permanent.
This year, we choose to go further.
From July 6, for the next 12 months, we cut the weekly toll cap from $60 to $50.
More help for more people.
And the greatest help for those who have no choice but to travel the most.
There is more.
One of the biggest rip-offs on our roads is the administration fee attached to toll notices.
In some cases, those fees are double the toll itself.
From July, they are gone.
Abolished.
Saving motorists $10 a notice.
Stopping a rip off which cost motorists $60 million last year.
The toll contracts the Liberals and Nationals signed were built to outlast every government that dared to touch them.
We are touching them anyway.
We capped the tolls. We abolished the fees.
And we vow to continue our fight for a fairer deal for Sydney motorists.
Speaker –
$100 off your rego.
Opal fares frozen for the year.
Tolls capped at $50 a week.
The end of the admin-fee farce.
That is the immediate relief we offer today.
This is how we attack the cost-of-living crisis from every angle.
This is how we help keep NSW affordable for working families.
This is what choosing our own fate looks like.
This is our answer to those saying state governments cannot help during a cost-of-living crisis.
And our argument against those who say we shouldn’t even try.
Essential services
Relief matters for today.
But reform matters for tomorrow.
And the reform that matters most to delivering world-class healthcare, education, public transport and public safety is having a world-class workforce to deliver them.
Because no service is better than the people who provide it.
So let there be no doubt.
This Labor Government does not see our paramedics, police officers, teachers and nurses as costs to be capped.
We see them as skilled professionals delivering essential services.
And we believe they are worth investing in.
We reject the false choice that says paying decent wages to essential workers must result in bad Budgets for taxpayers.
That is why we have invested in our essential workers in every Budget of this Government.
And today, our essential services are stronger for it.
Let no one forget.
Just a few years ago, principals were forced to merge classes and cancel lessons because there were not enough teachers to stand in front of their students.
Today, more than 25,000 additional teachers and support staff hold permanent positions in NSW schools.
Hundreds of thousands of students now have the teachers they need to help them read, write, count and learn.
Let no one forget.
Just a few years ago, NSW Ambulance was struggling to keep pace with rising demand.
Today, there are 986 more paramedics serving the people of NSW.
First responders there when people need them most.
And let no one forget.
Over the past three years, NSW has employed 6,556 additional nurses.
We did not cut the workforce.
We expanded it.
And we are delivering nurses their largest pay rise in more than two decades.
A $2.9 billion investment.
Every dollar: justified.
Every dollar: deserved.
Every dollar: making a difference.
Domestic and family violence
Speaker –
This simple principle: people looking after people – drives the largest new social investment in this Budget.
Across NSW there are women and children facing violence at home, reaching out for help.
But you know, I know, we know:
Services are full.
Waitlists are long.
And workers have no time left to give.
In any given fortnight, more than a third of services must turn away someone asking for help.
We can do better than that.
And we must do better than that.
So today I announce that this Government will increase core funding for frontline domestic and family violence programs by 50 per cent over the next four years.
The biggest increase ever.
A $184.1 million investment that will strengthen more than 90 specialist services across NSW.
An investment in the 3,300 workers who staff them.
And an investment in the more than 80,000 women and children who rely on them every year.
Here’s the difference that investment will make for just one of these services.
Liberty in Port Macquarie has supported women escaping violence since 1980.
Its workers – led by Kelly Lamb, who joins us today – cover more than 3,500 km2, from the coast to the inland.
Last year Liberty was funded to support 440 women.
Kelly and her team actually supported 1,600 victim-survivors.
By scraping together donations.
Through goodwill.
Through workers driving hundreds of kilometres every day to meet families who had nowhere else to turn.
Liberty deserves better.
The workers at Liberty deserve better.
Victim-survivors helped by Liberty – and across NSW – deserve better.
So we will do better.
To combat the scourge of family and domestic violence, we vow to fund:
More workers on the frontline.
More support for the families who need it.
More people there to look after people.
Health
Speaker –
If people looking after people is a core purpose of the government, then our health system is one of its highest callings.
That is why this Budget delivers the largest health commitment in the history of NSW.
A landmark $11.9 billion to build and upgrade the hospitals our growing state needs.
And a further $10.3 billion to increase services and pay the staff who provide them.
This record level of funding will create capacity for 33,000 additional emergency department visits every year.
2,900 more surgeries.
11,000 more dialysis treatments.
From Westmead to Bankstown.
From Grafton to Orange.
More care.
Closer to home.
For more people.
Education
If health is the service that catches us when we fall, then education is the service that powers our rise.
It is how children discover their talents.
Develop their potential.
And build a future they choose for themselves.
That is why this Budget invests $9.2 billion over four years in 260 new and upgraded schools across NSW.
New schools for growing communities in Austral and Oran Park.
New schools in regional communities from Chisholm to Flinders.
The schools are where the children are.
And the teachers are there to teach them.
Police and justice
Speaker –
This Budget backs the men and women who protect the people of NSW.
With new technology to fight modern crime.
An Australian-first armed response command.
And tougher firearms laws.
We are strengthening our justice system as well.
With a new Victims of Crime Commissioner.
Expanded video courts.
And reforms that will help justice be delivered more quickly.
Whether you live in the heart of Sydney or the furthest reaches of regional NSW.
Energy
We are also taking action to secure the energy future of our state.
Because no family should be at the mercy of an oil price set on the other side of the world.
And no economy can thrive if its energy system is less secure than its competitors.
That is why this Budget invests $557 million to help households install the technology that permanently lowers their power bills.
And to build the renewable energy infrastructure that will secure our future prosperity.
Energy we produce ourselves.
Power we control ourselves.
Security we provide ourselves.
Environment
We are also investing in the environment we depend upon and the natural places we love.
Safer beaches.
From shark nets to drones.
Better protection for threatened species.
And $130 million to improve access to our national parks.
Because the natural beauty of NSW should not be reserved for a privileged few.
It should be enjoyed by every family.
In every part of our state.
Infrastructure
And to carry a growing state, we must keep building.
Speaker –
Our $116.7 billion infrastructure program is larger than any undertaken by any previous NSW Government.
Not projects announced.
Projects funded.
Projects underway.
Twenty-five new metro stations.
A tunnel beneath Sydney Harbour.
The roads supporting our new international airport.
And a $2.1 billion plan to ensure the trains half a million people use every day run when they should.
Beyond Sydney, the work continues.
Money to fix the Great Western Highway as fast as we can.
Major road upgrades across regional NSW.
New hospitals.
New schools.
And 49 new public preschools.
From Ballina to Broken Hill.
$30 billion this year alone.
All built without selling a single public asset.
Because every road.
Every rail line.
Every hospital.
Every school.
And every person working within them.
Serves the same purpose.
People looking after people.
That is what good government is for.
And that is exactly what this Labor Government is delivering.
The economy
Speaker –
Relief for working families.
Higher wages for essential workers.
Better public services for us all.
Three big choices we make today.
Three choices we can afford to make because for three years we have worked to grow the NSW economy.
Through the ingenuity of our workforce.
Through the imagination of our businesses.
Through the enterprise of those willing to invest in our state’s future.
Together, they are driving a surge in private investment across NSW.
That is why the NSW economy grew this year.
That is why, despite higher interest rates and a global oil shock, our economy is expected to grow next year.
And the year after that.
And the year after that.
In fact –
Private investment is now the leading source of economic growth in NSW.
No other state in Australia can say the same.
Much of that investment is being driven by the renewable energy transition.
And NSW is attracting renewable energy investment because we were the first state to understand this simple truth:
Powering up with renewable energy is not merely an environmental cause.
It is an economic strategy.
Some in this Parliament oppose net zero.
When it comes to clean, green power: they are just not keen!
To them I say this –
To campaign against renewable energy is to campaign against investment.
It is to campaign against jobs.
It is to campaign against growth.
And it is to campaign for a recession.
The budget result
Speaker –
A robust economy. A resilient economy. A growing economy.
That means more jobs for our people.
More opportunities for our businesses.
And more prosperity for our state.
But a stronger economy does more than create jobs and opportunity.
It also strengthens the state’s finances.
It protects our pathway back to surplus.
Even when interest rates rise.
Even when a global oil shock erupts.
So, despite the headwinds we have encountered, and the pressures we have endured, NSW remains on track to deliver a surplus of $1.1 billion in 2027–28.
A remarkable turnaround from the state’s largest ever budget deficit: the $15.3 billion deficit recorded in 2021–22.
A recovery achieved despite collecting $5 billion less in stamp duty.
Despite collecting $3 billion less in land tax.
And despite the Commonwealth Grants Commission robbing NSW of $12.6 billion two years ago.
As for this financial year, I can report the budget result is $400 million better than forecast last June.
These improvements are not an accident.
They are the product of discipline.
Expenses are no longer growing at 6.5 per cent, like they did under those opposite.
Instead, nominal expenses are expected to grow by an average of 2.7 per cent across the forward estimates.
That is substantially below the long-run NSW average.
They are the result of difficult reforms:
Replacing a busted police death and disability insurance scheme.
Fixing a broken workers compensation system.
Reducing the number of senior executives across the public service.
And removing $13 billion from the state’s cost base through the Finance Minister’s Comprehensive Expenditure Review, begun in 2023.
Debt under control
Speaker –
We have also brought the state’s debt under control.
When our predecessors left office, their plans had gross debt hitting $188.2 billion by June 30, 2026.
In seven days, we will reach that date, but not that debt.
NSW gross debt will be almost $10 billion lower.
Saving taxpayers $400 million of additional interest payments every year.
A promise made.
A promise kept.
A promise exceeded.
Epilogue
Speaker –
When you hear me talk about debt management, expense growth and budget discipline, even you can be forgiven for thinking these are the most prized objectives of this Government.
They are not.
I know that no small business owner gets out of bed inspired by a reduction in NSW spending growth.
I am certain that no child dreams of growing up in a state with a lower debt-to-revenue ratio.
And I am sure that no family – other than mine – gathers around the dinner table to celebrate a stronger balance sheet.
But these things matter.
They matter because of what they make possible.
They give us the power to determine our destiny.
To choose our state’s future.
And in nine months’ time, the people of NSW will make a choice of their own.
So let me be absolutely clear about the choice before them.
One side is for recruiting more police, teachers, nurses and paramedics. One side is not.
One side is for paying these essential workers decent wages. One side is not.
One side is for creating thousands of jobs and growing the economy by reaching net zero. One side is not.
One side is for keeping Sydney Water and Essential Energy in public hands. One side is not.
One side is for building schools, hospitals, roads and railways without selling public assets. One side is not.
One side is for public ownership of the Northern Beaches Hospital. One side was not.
But above all –
One side knows what it stands for.
The other side does not.
On this side, we know that NSW succeeds when its people succeed.
We know that government’s role is not to replace the efforts of our citizens. It is to empower them.
To build the roads, railways and energy systems that allow them to flourish.
To educate the next generation.
To uphold the rule of law.
To protect those leaving violence.
To care for people’s health.
And to create the conditions in which enterprise, investment and hard work can thrive.
So Speaker –
Because this Budget provides relief where relief is needed.
Because it pursues reform where reform is necessary.
Because it exercises discipline where discipline is required.
And ultimately, because it serves a larger purpose.
To build a state working Australians can afford.
A state that rewards effort.
A state that expands opportunity.
A state whose future is ours to choose.
I commend the Bills to the House.