Interest rates nailed to the floor by the Reserve Bank and a surging house price boom have done for the NSW government what Chinese iron ore buyers did for the federal government budget fortunes. Stamp duty and a fully reopened state have helped deliver NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet a deficit in Tuesday’s budget of just half the $16 billion feared last November. Like the federal windfall it has been spent promptly, on health, big public service pay rises, electric car incentives, and an extravagant and superfluous $70 million giveaway on vouchers for hotel stays and Friday lunches in Sydney’s CBD.
Treasurer Dominic Perrottet is congratulated by colleagues in the NSW Parliament on Tuesday after reading his annual budget speech. AAP
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