Premier Peter Malinauskas’s government to deliver state budget earlier than expected

The Malinauskas Government’s first budget has been put in the fast lane as the new premier rushes to urgently fund his party’s multibillion-dollar agenda.

AN earlier-than-expected state budget date will be revealed on Thursday as Premier Peter Malinauskas seeks to urgently fund and press ahead with his $3.1bn policy agenda.

It is understood the new government's first budget will be substantially earlier than the September 4 date chosen in 2018 by the Liberal government after winning an election that March.

The first Malinauskas government budget date is not known but will be revealed when the new parliamentary sitting schedule is unveiled on Thursday.

Budget planning has been accelerated to meet the Premier’s demands to press ahead with major policy agenda items including hiring 350 more paramedics, building a bigger new Women’s and Children’s Hospital and implement the $593m hydrogen power plant slated for Whyalla.

Revealing its policy costings just two days before the March 19 election, Labor declared it would raise debt, cut spending on non-frontline public services and decrease budget surpluses to fund $3.118bn in election spending.

It is understood Education Department chief Rick Persse was relocated to spearhead Treasury in a $1.9m public sector executive bloodbath on April 1 because the Premier rates him highly as a leader who can drive a public sector workforce.

Premier Peter Malinauskas on March 28 chairing the first cabinet meeting of the new Labor Government. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Mr Malinauskas drilled a sense of urgency into his ministers at the government’s first Cabinet meeting on March 28, impressing upon them “that we have no time to waste”.

“The simple fact is that Labor was elected with a very substantial election policy that cuts across a whole suite of portfolios that is aimed at the long-term prosperity of our state,” he said at the post-Cabinet press conference.

Health was chief among urgent needs worthy of substantial attention, Mr Malinauskas said, but other priorities included education reform and delivering the hydrogen power plant.

“There are other long-term needs that we simply must seek to address to see the structural change to our economy to ensure that no family is left behind. And when that policy is examined in detail, it is quickly realised that there is no time to waste,” he said.

Delivering the former Marshall government’s first budget in early September after a March 17 election, the-then treasurer Rob Lucas swung the axe on dozens of programs and outlined plans to close TAFE campuses, in a savings push he said was key to fixing SA’s finances and resetting the economy.

The re-elected Rann Labor government delivered its 2010 budget in September and, when first elected in February, 2002, delivered its first budget in July.