NSW budget 2023: Winners and losers revealed in five-minute guide
The NSW budget has promised cost of living relief, help for first-home buyers, retention of essential workers, and much more. Find out who the winners and losers of this year’s budget are.
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What we lose to slash NSW debt
$300m in ‘loose change’ for new housing
The Minns Labor government’s first budget promised to cut, slash and burn with government contractors, politician’s salaries and departmental excess on the chopping block.
Large regional dam projects faced the axe and police services received little investment.
Yet, there were still plenty of winners in Tuesday’s budget with teachers and nurses getting big pay bumps and first home buyers finding some relief in stamp duty concessions.
Read below the winners and losers, and scroll down to use our interactive budget explainer.
Winners
TEACHERS AND NURSES
The state’s teachers and nurses have come up winners with large pay rises on the way. In addition to the removal of the wages cap, entry-level salaries for teachers went up from $75,791 to $85,000 with the government allocating $1.9 billion for teacher pay rises over four years.
Health care workers are also on track for a pay rise with 50,000 people expecting a pay rise of $3,500. An additional 1200 nurses and midwives will be employed by 2025-26 as part of safe staffing ratios.
FIRST HOME BUYERS
First home buyers will find some relief in a tough market with a $30,735 stamp duty discount for purchases between $800,000 and $1 million. Waving stamp duty entirely for purchases under $800,000
The Treasurer also found some “loose change”, which is now part of the government’s $2.2 billion housing and infrastructure plan.
The money will go to government-owned Landcom to develop extra homes.
Rather than paying a dividend to the Treasury next financial year, Landcom will instead begin work on an additional 1400 affordable homes and 3300 that will be offered at market rates.
About 3000 of these should be ready by the end of the decade, Mr Mookhey said
WESTERN SYDNEY DRIVERS
Drivers commuting from Western Sydney will benefit the most from the $60 weekly toll cap, saving some families about $500 a year. Not to mention they’ll be getting more than $2.4 billion in road upgrades.
The government will also proceed with toll rebates for heavy vehicles using the M5 East and M8 tunnels, with implementation on track for January 1.
Trucks will receive a rebate for a third of their trip travelled on the M5 East and M8, costing $54 million over the two-year trial.
The relief comes amid an independent review of toll roads being led by Professor
Allan Fels AO and Dr David Cousins AM.
DISASTER RELIEF
As NSW braces for an early start to the bushfire season the NSW budget has pumped $26 million into upgrading emergency services communication systems.
The government is paying $11.3 million for four new trailer-mounted mobile broadband cells that are self powered and can be taken to disaster areas to provide internet and mobile phone access.
Rural fire fighters will also be given satellite connectivity in their trucks to stay in contact when infrastructure has been destroyed.
Emergency Services minister Jihad Dib said natural disasters are becoming more severe.
“Since 2019 NSW has seen more than 60 declared disasters, costing the state $5 billion. In 2022 alone 20,000 homes were damaged,” he said.
The budget put aside money to help communities to prepare for fire and flood and recover faster with $121 million going to the NSW Reconstruction Authority.
Flood victims in Lismore who are still struggling to get back into their homes will benefit from $5 million for Resilient Lismore and the Two Rooms Project.
High risk areas in future will benefit from a $3.3 million investment in a natural disaster detection system and $10 million for hazard reduction teams as part of the bushfire season preparations.
INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
The creation of a NSW Indigenous Treaty is on the table with $5 million dedicated in the NSW budget for a 12-month consultation process with First Nations communities.
This comes despite no mention of a Voice to Parliament anywhere in the budget.
Financial sweeteners for Indigenous communities were drastically less than the $716 million spent in the 2022-23 budget with only $139.8 million allocated this year.
Alongside the $5 million put aside to “inform a pathway to Treaty”, $131.4 million will go towards continuing Closing the Gap initiatives, including improving access to housing and supporting land transfers.
Additionally the state’s Stolen Generations Keeping Places project will get a $3.4 million boost. The project supports Stolen Generation survivors to record their history and investigate accounts of missing children at the sites of former children’s homes.
CASINOS
The Star casino has agreed to pay towards the introduction of cashless gaming in return for lower tax rates.
Treasury analysis outlined in the NSW Budget said a proposed increase in casino tax rates “could threaten The Star’s ongoing financial viability” and put 3000 jobs at risk.
“As part of this agreement, The Star has also agreed to contribute to the industry transition to cashless gaming,” the budget said.
The Star is undergoing a major restructure after a damning investigation found it unsuitable to run a casino with poor management systems that encouraged money laundering and fraud.
Since July it has had higher tax rates for table games and pokies, with lower rates for money gambled by overseas whales who jet in for a punt.
The lower casino tax rates contributed to a drop in gambling tax revenue of $1.5 billion which also reflected lower use of pokies in clubs and hotels and less activity in both The Star and Crown casinos.
KOALAS
Koalas are big winners in the NSW budget with $172 million being spent on a new Great Koala National Park and protecting their habitat across the state.
Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the government was making an $80 million down payment on The Great Koala National Park on the mid-north coast to “bring the iconic koala back from the brink”.
Over the next four years $88 million will also be spent on creating the Georges River Koala National Park, building infrastructure to help them cross roads and creating a wildlife corridor in Woronora.
Ms Sharpe said funding the Koala Care Centre in Macarthur and $3.5 million for local koala care organisations would ensure “future generations can continue to see them in the wild”.
The budget also guaranteed the jobs of 85 staff who work on biodiversity roles whose jobs had previously been in doubt.
FARMERS AND PRODUCERS
Farmers and producers will also be the subject of a variety of measures aimed at tackling invasive species and diseases.
This includes $80m to protect NSW from red imported fire ants, while the beekeeping industry will also be supported by $77.2m.
Prawns, fishers farmers and fishers will get $10.2m to target white spot disease, with another $13m will be tipped into tackling feral pigs.
MORE ANALYSIS:
•Labor’s slash and burn budget to pay for $50b wage bill
•What restrained ‘rainy day’ budget means for you
•Cuts and cash grabs: What we lose to slash NSW debt
Losers
POLICE
Despite a desperate shortage of police officers the NSW budget managed to come up with funding for just 20 new recruits in Western Sydney, and only 15 new officers for the Murwillumbah area at a cost of $6.9 million.
Mr Mookhey conceded NSW needed more police officers after The Daily Telegraph revealed that the number of cops on the beat was so low that detectives are being put back into uniform.
“Right now we don’t have enough police officers in our police stations,” Mr Mookhey said. “It is a challenge to attract people to work as NSW Police officers.”
But despite this Police Minister Yasmin Catley unveiled just $4 million funding for a paltry
20 new recruits to “hit the beat in Western Sydney” after graduating at the end of the year.
“We know this region includes some of Sydney’s fastest growing areas, so this investment will help not only the people who live there, but the officers who work hard to serve the community,” she said.
Law and order barely rated in the budget which invested just $103 million to upgrade police stations, technology and equipment over the next four years.
The spending includes $27 million to improve police radios in the bush, $8 million to build a new wharf at Balmain, $8 million to repair Glebe Police Station and Nepean Police Command and $2 million to refurbish the Nemesis offshore drug busting boat.
There will also be $15.4 million to create a Criminal Assets Confiscation Team that will “seize the ill-gotten wealth of crime kingpins”.
INFRASTRUCTURE
The budget confirms a raft of blowouts or cuts to major projects.
Budget documents confirmed the NSW Government will have to throw an extra $1 billion towards finishing the City and South West Metro line, taking the total cost of that project to $19.5 billion.
The budget also has no funds for the Beaches Link tunnel, which was aimed at alleviating gridlock on the Spit Bridge.
The government will also axe dam wall raisings at Warragamba and Wyangala as well as the build of a new facility near Dungowan, with a tunnel under the Blue Mountains dumped as well.
REGIONAL COMMUNITIES
The budget also slashes the Resources for Regions scheme, which pumps funding into mining communities – the last tranche of which was worth $140m alone.
A duplication of the Great Western Highway on the western side of the Blue Mountains has also been delayed, with that and the axed dam projects part of $2.5 billion in savings found from dumping or delaying regional projects.
Travel cards for regional students have also been cut with the government discontinuing a $250 prepaid debit card for rural apprentices and uni students, while funding has been reduced for a seniors travel card.
NSW WATER SECURITY
Huge regional infrastructure projects will get the chop in a hit to water security in rural areas.
The budget confirms proposals to raise the wall of Wyangala Dam, in the state’s central-west, will be scrapped, as well as construction of the Dungowan Dam near Tamworth.
Along with the axing of the duplication of the Great Western Highway these projects make up part of the $2.5 billion in savings found from dumping or delaying regional projects.
HIGH AND MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES
With Active Kids vouchers slashed from $100 to $50 and means tested, families over Family Tax Benefit A are not eligible for a range of cost of living relief measures.
Additionally, middle and high income families will miss out on energy rebate handouts, with only 1.6 million families, pensioners and veterans eligible for the $250 family and seniors energy rebates and $350 low-income household rebate.
CHRISTMAS AND THE ARTS
Christmas has been cancelled with funding cuts to the Destination NSW budget seeing the Christmas event ‘Noel Sydney’ and ‘Open for Lunch cancelled.’ Additionally the $550 million Ultimo Powerhouse Museum rebuild scrapped in favour of a $250 million heritage revitalisation project is just one of many cultural programs slashed in favour of spending on hospitals and schools.
FERAL PIGS
The Labor government has feral pigs in its sights with $13 million for a feral pig control program to reduce their number. Over $10 million has been allocated in establishing the Good Neighbour program which coordinates pest infestations including feral pigs between neighbouring public and private lands.
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