NSW budget 2024: Social housing boost in spartan budget

The government will chip in almost $3m to slash the Moore Park Golf Course in half, with proposals to cut the facility down to nine holes to forge ahead over the next year. Another $9.4m will go to new facilities at nearby Centennial Park and Moore Park.

The NSW government will chip in almost $3 million to slash the Moore Park Golf Course in half, with proposals to cut the facility down to nine holes to forge ahead over the next year.

Budget papers confirm that $2.6m will go towards the design and planning of works to transform a swathe of Moore Park Golf Course into a new public park “in one of the most densely populated areas of Sydney”.

The funding will result in the golf course being slashed from 18 to nine holes, in a move championed by City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, despite pleas from the golfing community – including Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg – to save the facility.

The course is also one of the most affordable 18-hole tracks in Sydney, with a joining fee of $2000 compared with other courses charging up to $40,000 for membership.

The move to chop the course was announced last October, with Premier Chris Minns saying the move to grab 20 of the 45 hectares for use as a new park came ahead of predictions that 80,000 residents would live within 2km of Moore Park by 2040.

The budget also spelt out that nearby Centennial Park and Moore Park will get $9.4m for the construction of new sports and recreational facilities, as part of a $12.7m capital investment over the next decade.

$5.1BN SOCIAL HOUSING BOOST

An unexpected stamp duty and land tax windfall worth $5.6 billion will be directly pumped into building new social housing dwellings particularly for people fleeing domestic violence.

The Minns government will spend $5.1 billion to build social houses to help domestic violence victims into homes, while relying on Sydney’s booming property market to prop up the budget’s bottom line.

Amid a threadbare budget which forecasts deficits as far as the eye can see, the government will build 8400 new social houses, at least half of which will go to people fleeing domestic and family violence.

TWO NEW SCHOOLS FOR BOX HILL

Families in Sydney’s forgotten suburb of Box Hill will gain a new primary school and high school, headlining the nearly $9 billion to be spent on school infrastructure amid an ongoing tug-of-war with the federal government over recurrent funding, but only $630,000 has been invested so far.

The state budget has allocated $630,000 in the 2024-25 financial year to start planning the Terry Road schools, in contrast to the $7.9 million being spent on to a new school in nearby Gables to June 2025, following a Daily Telegraph campaign.

The state government will invest $8.9 billion in building and upgrading public schools overall, with $7.9 billion set aside for new builds, relocations and major upgrade works, while close to $1.5 billion will be spent on capital maintenance and minor works like new toilet blocks, roof repairs and disabled access.

Meanwhile NSW’s share of recurrent funding to public schools will increase from approximately 72 per cent of the Gonski-proscribed School Resourcing Standard to 75 per cent, as the Minns government continues to lobby their federal counterparts to increase their share from 20 to 25 per cent.

The extra three per cent amounts to more than $481 million in additional funding.

BULK BILLING BOOST

The Minns government will also spend $188 million to cut the cost of GP visits, by giving payroll tax relief to doctors who bulk bill at least 80 per cent of their patients.

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

NSW will post a $3.6bn deficit next financial year, with the budget bottom line to be $4.5bn worse off than forecast in September.

Deficits will continue to shrink over the forward estimates to $1.5bn in 2027-28. Gross debt will peak at almost $200bn by 2027-28, amounting to 20.3 per cent of gross state product.

Sydney’s property market has come to the rescue for the budget bottom line, with increased stamp duty and land tax receipts driving $10.7bn in extra revenue the state will collect over the next four years.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s second budget includes $2.4bn in new revenue measures, $1.5bn of which comes from increased land tax.

The upwards revision in revenue almost covers the money NSW has lost in GST revenue from the Commonwealth, on which Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has laid blame for the pallid state of his books.

Social housing formed the centrepiece of Mr Mookhey’s second budget, with the government planning to spend $6.6bn on social housing and homelessness services over the forward estimates.

The budget promises to deliver new homes to ease the housing crisis. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Mr Mookhey is promising to deliver up to 30,000 new homes, including by releasing land to support 21,000 homes for the market.

The government will build 8400 social homes, of which 6200 will be new builds. The remaining 2200 will come from existing social housing that will be knocked down and rebuilt.

That will cost $5.1bn, meaning each new social housing dwelling will cost the government $607,142 to construct or rebuild.

A further 35,000 social housing dwellings will be renovated and fixed, costing $1 billion.

ENERGY BILL RELIEF

As revealed by The Daily Telegraph last month, the budget includes no cash handouts for families doing it tough

However, those on the Family Tax Benefit or facing “financial hardship” will get slightly more off their energy bills. The “family energy rebate,” for those on tax benefits, will increase by $70.

The state’s wage bill for the next financial year has been revised up by $1.8 billion since December, coming in at a total of $47.8bn by 2024-25.

The budget papers said the increase was due to higher insurance costs and a frontline worker hiring spree rather than the government’s higher wages offer.

The wage bill is expected to grow at 3.2 per cent per year, up to $52.4bn in 2027-28. Adding superannuation, employee expenses will come to $58.8bn by June 2028, amounting to 45.5 per cent of all government spending.

WAGE FREEZE

Ahead of the budget, Liberal Leader Mark Speakman insisted that the Labor government had handed the budget to its “union masters”.

In a bid to counter that argument, Mr Mookhey on Tuesday said that returning to surplus by cutting the government’s wage bill would require firing up to 20,000 public sector workers and implementing a “complete wage freeze” next financial year.

Treasury calculated that employee expenses grew on average by 4.7 per cent in pre-Covid years, compared to the 3.2 per cent forecast in the budget.

The budget also includes more than $5 billion in roads spending, mainly in Western Sydney, as revealed by the Telegraph on Tuesday.

In good news for mortgage holders, NSW Treasury is assuming no more rate rises over the next few years. Treasury assumes mortgage holders will get interest rate relief from next year with two cash rate cuts of 0.25 per cent in the March and June quarters.

NSW is then predicting rates will stay steady in the September quarter before the RBA slowly starts to cut again, down to a rate of around 3.1 per cent.

TRANSPORT SPEND

Soaring fuel costs will deliver a $300 million blow to the NSW bottom line, with the cost of powering NSW’s public transport network rapidly growing in the last six months.

Tuesday’s state budget has the government spending $119.4 billion on its infrastructure pipeline over the next four years, headlined by $20.1b on the city’s burgeoning Metro network alone.

Budget papers confirmed the NSW Government would single-handedly fund the M7-M12 interchange, which will connect the new western Sydney airport to the city’s road network without a toll.

The extra $110m comes solely from the NSW Government after the Commonwealth dumped a proposal to jointly fund the project late last year, in a decision Treasurer Daniel Mookhey described then as “disappointing with a capital D”.

The NSW Government also isn’t immune to feeling pain from the cost of petrol at the bowser, with one of the main variances from the half-yearly budget review an increase of $300.2 million until 2027-28.

Soaring petrol prices aren’t just slamming punters. They’ve hit the NSW budget too. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Budget papers link the cost blow out to higher public transport fuel prices, more expensive bus contracts, and more expensive steel, electricity and maintenance needed to keep the Waratah fleet on the rails.

The first major steps into expanding Sydney’s Metro network will also be taken, with the NSW Government to fulfil an election promise by putting more than $100m in the next year into business cases for new Metro connections.

The business case will explore the possibility of three new rail connections – one linking Bradfield to Glenfield via Leppington, another from Bradfield to Campbelltown/Macarthur, and another from St Marys to Tallawong.

AEROTROPOLIS

The aerotropolis surrounding the new western Sydney airport will also get a smattering of new money, alongside a previously announced $1b roads package for the area.

That’ll include $15.4m to buy land and build a new fire station in the Bradfield City centre, which will also service the new airport.

The maligned Western Parkland City Authority, which is tasked with building Bradfield, will receive $302m over the next year to build research facilities and other key buildings, as part of the precinct becoming the futuristic jobs hub it has long been touted as.

Tucked away deep in the budget is a paltry $2m which will be used for the initial planning for a hospital within the aerotropolis.

LIGHT RAIL

As previously revealed by The Daily Telegraph, more than $2 billion will be set aside over 10-years for the second stage of the Parramatta Light Rail.

Funding for Metro West over the next four years will reach $13.4b and includes the potential of an extra station at Rosehill racecourse, where more than 20,000 homes could be built if a proposal by the Australian Turf Club is voted up by its members.

Roads will be widened to enhance access for wind turbine parts.

ROAD UPGRADES FOR WIND TURBINES

Pinch points preventing giant wind turbine parts from being transported to renewable energy zones will be widened and upgraded in a $128.5 million boost in Tuesday’s NSW budget.

State roads and bridges used by giant trucks carrying solar panel and wind turbine parts from the Port of Newcastle to the Central-West Orana renewable energy zone near Dubbo will receive major upgrades.

Roads used to transport turbines to the New England renewable energy zone in the state’s north will also receive significant upgrades.

This comes after the Daily Telegraph revealed last year bridges and low bypasses along the Golden Highway were impeding massive multi-trailers carrying renewable energy parts, resulting in the state government spending millions to fix.

Enormous wind turbine blades measuring up to 90 metres long and almost seven metres in diameter need to be transported along some of the state’s major arterial roads. But choke points near Muswellbrook on the New England Highway push oversized trucks on to local roads.

Smaller local roads used by renewable energy companies will not be included in the upgrades, with individual developers expected to pay for the upkeep of those roads.

NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe said the $128 million investment would benefit drivers who use those roads as well as speeding up the construction of renewable energy farms.

— with Madeleine Bower and Lachlan Leeming

Originally published as NSW budget 2024: Social housing boost in spartan budget