NSW budget: Metros make way for ‘pipes and poles’

A record state infrastructure spend will look to quickly establish urban Metro train lines before focusing on swapping out ageing infrastructure and supporting market housing.

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey in Sydney on Tuesday. Picture: Rohan Kelly

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The Minns government has projected a record infrastructure spend to update electricity and water supply as new projects and Metro lines are delivered.

The 2025-26 state budget projects that infrastructure spending will be frontloaded, with the greatest portion of investments to be made in the year to come and tapering away as costs are passed to non-government agencies such as Sydney Water.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey predicted $30bn in infrastructure spending in the year to come, from a net $118.3bn over the forward ­estimates. It is nearly double the average yearly spend between 2013 and 2017 of $15.4bn.

Transport investment will make up the lion’s share of the infrastructure spend, taking in $55.6bn over the forward estimates, with Metro projects still the central focus almost a year after the first stations opened.

Twenty-five stations across three lines are still to be delivered, beginning with the Sydney Metro West project at a cost of $10.8bn across four years. A further $3.6bn was provided to the Sydney Metro Western Sydney Airport project and $801.4m to Sydney Metro City and Southwest.

And $2.1bn was earmarked for a zero emissions buses program and $843m for the regional rail fleet.

Road investments were supplemented by $11.1bn in federal contributions, while the state headlined its spending with $3.8bn over four years for the Western Sydney Harbour Tunnel.

In public services, Mr Mookhey pledged another $9bn for schools and $12.4bn for hospitals.

He also looked to shift the Sydney skyline by clustering investment at Blackwattle Bay in anticipation of the new Sydney Fish Market and in the under-construction suburb of Bradfield around Western Sydney Airport.

A $70m ferry wharf will lead into a redeveloped housing zone at the old Fish Market site, for which $79m is budgeted.

The Bradfield city centre will cost $494.8m in 2026, with a total cost of $870.6m, alongside a $261.9m advanced manufacturing precinct and $3.6bn Metro line.

Cumulatively, the state and federal governments have channelled $25bn into Bradfield, bargaining on major residential uptake and private business ­investment.

Providing new water pipelines and powerlines to developing suburbs, and repairing ageing electricity and water infrastructure, was also a core focus that the Treasurer acknowledged was a necessary, albeit unexciting, aspect of the budget. “It’s the poles and it’s the pipes,” he said. “It is not particularly glamorous … but (these are) all the assets that are coming to the end of their natural life that need to be replaced, and over time that obviously does impact on the state’s balance sheet.”

A $1bn pre-sale finance guarantee – intended to provide 15,000 homes and a greater proportion of low- and medium-rise developments – was also included in the budget. Guaranteeing up to 50 per cent of the capital for approved projects, Mr Mookhey dubbed it a “canny use of the state’s balance sheet”.