What we know about the NSW budget so far

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey will deliver his fourth budget on June 23 and, in a departure from the typical pre-election spending bonanza, he has been laying the groundwork for sober reading.

In his final budget before next year’s state election, the treasurer says his design principles are “relief and reform” while accounting for a “period of tremendous uncertainty”.

In a speech to the McKell Institute last month, Mookhey revealed the state’s growth will slow to 1 per cent in 2026-27, down from the 2.5 per cent forecast in December. Only private market investment in renewable energy projects is keeping the state out of recession next year, he said.

The lagging economy is being caused in part by rising interest rates, which are having an outsized impact on NSW’s economy compared with the rest of the country thanks to the size of our mortgages. Stamp duty receipts are predicted to fall by $5 billion by 2029-30, while land tax receipts will decline by about $3 billion over the same period.

Couple that with the global oil shock playing havoc with consumer confidence, and it’s not the rosy economic picture the government would have hoped for leading up to the March election.

Still, Mookhey has acknowledged that with households facing unrelenting budgetary pressures, cost-of-living policies are necessary to “help people navigate this difficult moment and plan for the future”.

Health

• A $112 million investment to provide long-term funding for mental health services. The package includes $43.3 million for Lifeline to deliver its crisis telephone line, $64 million in funding for joint NSW-Commonwealth services such as walk-up mental health clinics and $4.3 million for peak bodies.
• $10.3 billion in recurrent funding for a range of health services, including $2.9 billion to fund wage increases for nurses after a long-running battle with the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association in the Industrial Relations Commission.
• Funding for a series of previously announced health infrastructure projects, including the new hospitals in Rouse Hill ($910 million), Bankstown ($2 billion) and Eurobadalla ($330 million), as well as Fairfield Hospital’s redevelopment ($630 million), and additional beds for Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals ($120 million).
• A $400 million hospital maintenance “blitz” that comes after a fungus cluster was implicated in the deaths of two transplant patients at Royal Prince Alfred. It led to revelations about wider maintenance issues, including pigeon infestations causing cases of bird lice and maggots dropping onto patients’ beds.

Education

• A new public primary school for up to 1000 students in Chisholm, a new suburb near Newcastle.

Environment

• $195.2 million over three years to support conservation under the Saving our Species program, including feral animal control, tree planting, weeding and riverbank management and restoring habitat of at-risk species.
• The delivery of a NSW Nature Strategy, which will cost $26 million and support targets for nature recovery across the state.

Transport

• Windsor Road at Rouse Hill will be upgraded, including widening and improved intersections. The budget includes $190 million for the project, while the federal government has promised $200 million.
• $2.1 billion will be invested in the ongoing maintenance of the city’s train network. After a series of catastrophic mishaps, the Rail Operations Centre will be allocated $150 million over four years for improvements, such as incident response and passenger support.

Energy

• Improvements to the South West Renewable Energy Zone’s transmission capacity will unlock about 1.3 gigawatts of network capacity and allow for four new wind, solar and battery projects to connect to the electricity system. The project will cost $225 million.

Emergency services

• The management of the Rural Fire Service fleet will be modernised with a $470 million investment over 10 years. The announcement is aimed at ensuring RFS truck maintenance is better managed, and will be paired with legislation that will move responsibility for fleet management from local councils to the state.

Bondi

• Six months on from the nation’s worst terrorist attack, $8.3 million will be allocated to support the Jewish community, with $2 million for a permanent memorial to be established to honour the victims in Bondi. The Sydney Jewish Museum will receive $2.6 million for a redevelopment that will include exhibitions on modern antisemitism.

The Herald will bring you every detail of the NSW budget when it is handed down at 12.30pm on Tuesday, June 23.

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