NSW budget 2024 LIVE updates: State faces decade in the red as Treasurer Daniel Mookhey hands down budget

Alright, now the budget has been handed down, let’s get to some analysis.

Senior economics writer Matt Wade writes: “We were told the state’s finances were a wreck. The budget papers show something very different.”

“In the coming financial year state revenue will reach a record $122 billion – $2 billion more than forecast only six months ago,” Matt writes. “And over the next four years the government will have $11 billion more to spend than expected last December.

“Mookhey can thank the property market for much of the budget windfall; increases in forecast transfer duty (which includes stamp duty on residential property) and land tax have driven the big revenue upgrade.”

Read his full analysis.

“Mr Speaker, the upper house is calling,” Mookhey says as he ends his speech (it’s rare for a treasurer to sit in the upper, not lower, house of parliament).

“No one’s responding!” an MP is heard interjecting.

“I promise to return next year if you’ll have me. I commend these bills to the house,” he says, to applause from his colleagues.

After announcing most of the government’s new spending – and before he details the expected deficit – Mookhey is discussing why he believes the GST carve-up is unfair for NSW.

“If NSW was still getting back 92 cents from every dollar in GST paid in this state, the budget would be returning to surplus next year,” he says.

“In fact, NSW could have expected cumulative surpluses over the forward estimates worth $1.9 billion. But NSW is not getting back 92 cents per dollar. NSW will only get 87 cents.

“Here is a way to comprehend the impact of the Commonwealth Grant Commission’s decision on the NSW budget: the Grants Commission has cost NSW more in lost revenue than COVID-19 did.”

And here’s the list of the new and upgraded schools set to benefit from this year’s budget:

• Box Hill Terry Road Primary School
• Box Hill Terry Road High School
• Huntlee Primary School
• Huntlee High School
• Calderwood Primary School – new school upgrades
• Leppington Public School – upgrade: stage 2
• Northern Beaches Secondary College – Cromer Campus upgrade
• Googong Public School – upgrade: stage 2
• Austral Public School – upgrade
• Yennora Public School and Verona School – upgrade: multi-purpose hall
• Riverbank Public School and The Ponds High School – upgrade: expanded project

The NSW government has allocated $105 million over the next year for new and upgraded public schools in Tuesday’s budget, including about $2 million towards planning and design for an expected overhaul of bursting-at-the-seams Riverbank Public and The Ponds High in the city’s north-west.

The Ponds High and Riverbank Public – which have a combined enrolment of 4200 students – are expected to receive upgrades in coming years as both schools have expanded into dozens of demountables and exceed their cap by hundreds of students.

However, the new co-ed Randwick High School – a merger of the existing boys and girls campuses – has $3 million allocated in the budget for upgrades over the next year.

In February, the government announced $42 million would go towards upgrading the Randwick schools when the government flagged the boys and girls schools would open as a co-ed campus from 2025.

Funding for five new schools has been allocated including a new primary and high school for Box Hill. About $30 million will be allocated to Macquarie Park Education Campus, an area which area has been flagged for a large number of new apartment buildings. About $114 million will be allocated for completing the Cumberland High upgrade.

Last year, the government announced $3.5 billion for infrastructure upgrades in growing suburbs. That has lifted by about $100 million this year.

$1.08 billion will be spent on minor works at hundreds of public schools across NSW for toilet block upgrades, painting and other maintenance work.

There are some interesting projections about the state’s population in the budget.

NSW’s population growth will nearly halve over the next four years, the budget projects, as foreshadowed cuts to international migration relieve pressure on the housing market but create risks for economic growth.

Economic forecasts contained in Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s budget showed population growth falling from 2.1 per cent (or more than 160,000 people) in 2022-23 to 1.2 per cent by July 2025 before dropping to 1.1 per cent by the end of the forward estimates.

“The NSW population has recently grown at an elevated rate, with much of this attributed to the large increase in net overseas migration following the reopening of international borders,” the budget papers said.

After migration plunged during COVID as the nation’s borders were closed, post-pandemic immigration has created a political firestorm both federally and within NSW, with the forecasts coming in the midst of an intense debate over the appropriate level after net migration almost hit 550,000 over the last year.

Read more here.

As has become the norm, spending on building Sydney’s new metro rail lines, roads and other transport infrastructure has easily dwarfed that for projects in other sectors such as health and education.

In fact, about half of the $119 billion in capital spending on new public infrastructure over the next four years is for the state’s transport projects such as the Western Harbour Tunnel and mega rail lines in Sydney.

With the Metro West rail project ramping up, $13.4 billion has been allocated for the construction of the new underground line between Sydney’s CBD and Parramatta over the next four years.

Some $5.5 billion has also been set aside for completion of a metro line to Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek, which is due to open in late 2026.

The papers were short on new details of funding for transport after a flurry of announcements about what was in store in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s budget, including money for the replacement of the state’s ageing Tangara passenger train fleet.

After a few formalities, we’re away.

Daniel Mookhey is now speaking, and has begun with an Acknowledgement of Country.

And then he gets straight to it:

Rather than reciting all that this young government has already achieved, I prefer to start with all the work we still have to do, the work we still have to do for the millions of families and businesses burdened by decades-high levels of inflation, the duty we still owe to the tens of thousands of patients who turn to our public hospitals for urgent care, the task that remains to provide the hundreds of thousands of students attending our public schools with a world-beating accommodation, the responsibility we have to protect every community against crime … These challenges are this government’s causes … 

We do not expect to overcome them in a single budget, but in each labor budget, we make progress.

The NSW Labor government will spend $5.1 billion on building 8400 social homes – with half of those specifically for women and children fleeing domestic violence – in the biggest investment in public housing in the state’s history.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s second budget will also see the government make its first policy intervention into supporting bulk billing by providing a full rebate on payroll tax to doctors who bulk bill 80 per cent of patients in metropolitan Sydney.

The move, which will cost the budget $189 million, is designed to ease the pressure on the state’s strained emergency departments, which have been taking the load as bulk billing rates declined.

NSW Health says for every 1 per cent reduction in bulk-billing, there are 3000 extra presentations each year at emergency departments.

The spend will also include $104 million to waive historical payroll tax liabilities for clinics with contractor GPs.

Mookhey said the budget was one of “must-haves” and “careful in difficult economic times”.

Read the full story here.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey spoke in the Legislative Assembly at noon after making the journey from the Legislative Council.

Watch a replay below: