Today in Parliament, Abigail condemned the Minns Labor Government’s 2025-26 Budget as hollow spin, accusing Labor of deception, inaction, and abandoning its core values amid escalating crises in climate, housing, domestic violence, disability and workers’ rights.

Abigail said:

On behalf of The Greens, and as our Treasury spokesperson, I contribute to debate on the Appropriation Bill 2025 and cognate bills. The third budget delivered by this Minns Labor Government has been described as a lot of things so far, and "boring" is the one that has possibly been used—and that I have heard—the most. But "boring" actually gives it far too much credit. I suspect the Treasurer might have been angling for people to think this was a boring budget, synonymous with "steady" perhaps, which is not too far away from "responsible", and the image of a government with its steady hand on the tiller of a boat bobbing away in calm waters, with nothing to see and everything just fine.

Far from being boring, the budget is an alarming blob of nothingness in the face of some of the largest and most significant challenges our State has ever faced. We are lurching from crisis to crisis—the climate crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis, the domestic and family violence crisis and the crisis in our public health system. None of them are less of a crisis because there are other competing crises but all of them pose a genuine, urgent and severe threat to the wellbeing and quality of life of the people in our State. Each of them deserve big, bold, courageous and significant policy, action and funding from this Government. But what do they get? Nothing. There is a little bit of this and a little bit of that, lots of words and promises, but compared with the scale of what is required to respond in any meaningful way to any of these crises, it is nothing. The Government knows that. What gives the game away, when we look closely at this budget, is the level of spin, the smoke and mirrors, the outright deception that this Government has used to hide the fact that it is doing so very little.

There are a few recurring features of the budget presentation that are of note. The first is the rather brazen inclusion of so much funding from the Federal Government. If members looked at the budget overview paper and just read the bolded figures, they would be forgiven for assuming that the New South Wales Government was spending a lot more in this budget than it actually is. The overview states the budget contains "$4.8 billion additional investment in schools", but that is from the Federal Government; "$120 million for maternity and birthing services at Rouse Hill Hospital", except that over half of that is from the Federal Government; and "$2.4 billion for new and improved roads", except a large part of that is also from the Federal Government. No fewer than 13 roads projects are explicitly listed out, big and bold, at a price tag of $342.2 million, under the lead‑in of "Australian Government funding will allow New South Wales to deliver".

The budget paper overview states the budget contains $579 million for energy bill relief for households, but that is from the Federal Government. There are increased battery discounts, also through the Federal Government; and the $18.7 million for the Pindari Dam cold-water pollution and fish-friendly water extraction projects is "fully funded by the Australian Government". There are so many more in this glossy document that we are told are "in partnership with the Federal Government", taking credit for large funding numbers without making it clear exactly how much New South Wales is contributing, if anything at all.

I mean, really, has Labor no self-respect? Does it just sees itself as a sub-branch of the Federal Government, connected by means of political allegiance, rather than as a party elected in its own right to govern the State of New South Wales? It may be fooling itself with this nonsense, but it is not fooling us. The budget paper overview contains lots of examples of budget spin, but this next one is particularly galling. Once again, there are zero announceables and there is zero additional funding for people with disability. But if members just read the glossy budget documents, they might have got a different impression. The overview declares proudly under a section titled "Disability support":

• $8.5 million to fund disability initiatives and upgrade government-owned disability properties.
• $8.0 million for the Ageing and Disability Commission to continue its frontline safeguarding work.

And then:

These measures are in addition to the $4.1 billion in cash and in-kind contributions budgeted in 2025‑26 for individual support packages and other services delivered under the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

That is a measly $8.5 million primarily just to maintain the Government's own properties, $8 million to a continuously underfunded Ageing and Disability Commission that is largely focused on elder abuse rather than people with disability, and in any case is largely about trying to protect vulnerable people from horrific abuse. But do not worry: If members were wondering why the Government is crowing about doing less than even the bare minimum to actually build a better New South Wales for its at least one million residents with a disability, there is technically this $4.1 billion amount that New South Wales contributes under the NDIS, a scheme that covers only around 9 per cent of people with disability, is a Federal Government scheme and, again, is not new money. In the face of a New South Wales government failing to sign on to the minimum accessibility standards under the National Construction Code and in the context of a budget that makes no mention of the foundational supports New South Wales is supposed to be responsible for after the NDIS review, this is more than just a slap in the face to people with disability across our State and more than just tokenistic: It is offensive.

Another good but particularly devastating example of the budget spin is the way this Minns Labor Government continues to treat the domestic and family violence sector. Again, looking at the announceables, members might think that the Minns Government is actually doing a thing when it comes to tackling domestic and family violence in our State. But no. Do not for a moment think that it is finally listening to the sector and not just doing whatever it thinks people want to hear. The last couple of budgets have been disheartening when it comes to domestic and family violence, but this third Labor budget is cruel.

As anyone who has paid attention would know, the sector has long been calling for a 50 per cent uplift in the core baseline funding for specialised frontline domestic and family violence services. These are the services that daily make the difference between life and death, impacting whether someone who has made the decision to leave their partner—as we know, the riskiest time for domestic homicides—will reach safety and stay safe in the following months and years. Despite ever‑increasing demand, those services have seen no increase in their funding for years.

The growing need for support has widened the pre-existing gap between demand and supply for specialist domestic and family violence services. Victim-survivors are waiting on average two months to receive support in the State, with some waitlists stretching for months on end. In the 12 months following the Minns Labor Government's so-called emergency funding package, 94 per cent of New South Wales frontline services reported an increase in demand. According to analysis commissioned by Domestic Violence NSW, it would only take an additional $163.1 million to provide that much-needed funding in 2025-26, on top of the previously allocated $204.4 million in 2024-25. But year after year the Government instead decides to focus on law and order measures to tackle domestic and family violence.

According to Counting Dead Women Australia, of the 79 women killed by violence in Australia in 2024, New South Wales recorded 25 deaths, the highest number of gender-based murders in the country. In the last 11 years, New South Wales has recorded the highest number of gender-based murders in the country nine times. According to the 2024 figures of Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, between 2023 and 2024 New South Wales saw a 6.5 per cent rise in reported domestic and family violence-related assaults; a 7.6 per cent increase in intimidation, stalking and harassment; a 6.9 per cent increase in apprehended domestic violence orders; and a 9 per cent increase in breaches of ADVOs.

Both Victoria and Queensland spend substantially more than New South Wales on domestic and family violence services and programs on a per capita basis. Victoria spends almost three times as much as New South Wales, and Queensland spends around 50 per cent more. The call from the sector and experts has been crystal clear. If the Government wants to save lives, it must fund these services at the level needed, which means increasing baseline funding by 50 per cent at the minimum. Not only does this budget not give these services any increase in funding; the Treasurer has lifted the wording in their yearly budget submissions and spun it to look as if he has. He pronounced proudly in his budget speech:

There is $272.7 million set aside to support the State's domestic, family and sexual violence assistance services—meaning their baseline funding is 50% higher than it was in February 2023.

I mean, you could not make this stuff up: a sector that is so poorly funded, that is literally trying to save lives, not only being forced for another year to work to turn the tide in the face of wave after wave of tragic deaths but then to also having this Government trying to spin the budget to make itself look better and cover up its blatant failures. I cannot begin to express just how insulted and, frankly, hurt the hardworking people in the domestic and family violence sector are right now. To be honest, we all thought Labor would be better than the Coalition, but it has not turned out to be true. It is just as arrogant and it fails to listen just as much, but the level of spin it uses to cover up its failures is next level and, frankly, cruel.

While we are talking about the New South Wales Labor Government's failures to deal with crises by listening and acting on actual evidence, and noting how keen the State Government is to claim credit in this budget for everything the Federal Labor Government is doing, let us look at how this budget responds to what is still the greatest existential crisis of our time: climate change. The section on climate change in the budget overview glossy gave me a genuine laugh. There is a moment when you can go past disappointment, past disgust, past anger and past despair into some sort of mad hysteria about a thing. I encourage all members to do a control find on the budget overview for the word "climate". They will find it twice: once in the table of contents and once in the body of the document in the heading "Energy and climate change". But climate is not mentioned in the actual text of that section, despite its heading. And that pretty much sums up this budget's, and this Government's, actions on climate: lots of headlines, headings and spin, but not a thing of substance.

The budget contains no new money for the renewable energy zones to speed up transition and no money dedicated to reducing our emissions in other industry sectors, with a decrease in spend on environmental initiatives. Last year was the world's warmest summer on record, with ocean temperatures one degree warmer than average. Since 2023, 84 per cent of the world's coral reefs have been damaged in the worst global bleaching event on record, impacting more than 80 countries and territories. Federal Labor has approved 27 fossil fuel projects since it was first elected in 2022. The very first act of the so-called environment Minister, Murray Watt, has been to conditionally approve the extension of Australia's largest oil and gas production area off the Kimberley Coast from 2030 out to 2070. Those actions represent a blatant rejection of the weight of scientific opinion.

The world has already warmed by 1.2 degrees since pre-industrial times and, without change, we are looking at three times that warming by the end of the century. Every tonne of carbon burned will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, locking in high levels of global warming and committing us to irreversible changes that we will not be able to adapt to or recover from. Labor can say what it likes about the Coalition's climate policy flip-flopping, but it has no basis on which to take the moral high ground. As with everything else, Labor is all spin and no action. If members look at the December 2024 emissions figures, they might think that Australia's emissions have declined by 27 per cent overall since 2005. But if members take out the discredited carbon credits undermining the Federal Government's dodgy offsets scheme, they will see Australia's emissions have actually fallen only 2.8 per cent since 2005, obviously nowhere near the 43 per cent reduction Federal Labor has promised for 2030.

Even the most hard-headed economist, devoid of concern for the impact of climate change on people and planet for people and planet's sake, would understand the need to act urgently to decarbonise the economy for the sake of its impact on budget bottom lines. In fact, the budget explicitly recognises just how catastrophic more frequent and unexpected weather events have been for the finances of this State. We are told that in the last six years New South Wales and Federal governments have spent $9.5 billion in disaster relief and recovery across the State, which is more than a 1,000 per cent increase on the previous six years. A further $4.2 billion of disaster relief is included in the forward estimates and is expressed as a conservative figure that is likely to increase. That is before we get to the broader economic impacts of those disasters, the long-term costs and the consequent reduction in productivity. Yet the budget does not go beyond bemoaning that state of affairs to actually do something about mitigating it. No, that would require some long-term economic thinking, which is not in Labor's DNA.

Let us look at housing, then—or, rather, we will not, because if you ask most people on the weekend going from suburb to suburb looking for a home they can afford to live in, there is none to be seen. The median price tag for a house in Sydney is now a whopping $1.83 million, over 27 times as much as national median earnings. House prices are forecast to grow by another 7 per cent in the next financial year. Even the median unit price in Sydney is forecast to jump by 6 per cent to almost $900,000. Rents continue to skyrocket and the housing crisis continues largely unabated, with nothing Labor has done so far, whether at State or Federal level, making one skerrick of a difference. It is almost like what is needed is big, bold action that, instead of giving more handouts to developers and investors, focuses on treating housing as a home first and not a commodity. No, wait, it is exactly like that. Here we have yet another budget where cash is being thrown at developers to fast-track planning approvals instead of being directly invested into delivering more public housing for the now 65,000-plus households on the waiting list.

Build-to-rent developers will get more tax handouts, even as build-to-rent apartments in Sydney are rented out at above the already astronomically high market price. As pointed out by my colleague the member for Newtown, Jenny Leong, The Greens spokesperson for housing, this is "not an affordability solution; it's just watered down, privatised public housing". That approach of relying on the private market to deliver housing, while simultaneously refusing to end the tax handouts that make it easier for someone to buy their tenth house than their first, will continue to embed the inequalities in our housing market and make the housing crisis worse. Public money needs to be spent on public housing, not on subsidising private developers and landlord investors. It is as simple as that. How would that go down with the business lobby? Maybe the Premier would not receive such a warm welcome to next year's Business NSW pre-budget breakfast if he actually stood up to big business and stood with the people of New South Wales. Would big business still urge people to tell each other that they love Chris Minns if he was not siding with business and acting against the core principles of the Labor Party at every opportunity?

That brings us to the workers compensation scheme and some of the biggest misleading and deceptive spin by this Labor Government to date. I must put on record that I am still confounded by what on earth the Labor Premier and Treasurer think they are doing when it comes to workers compensation and why they would ever have put forward a bill so brutally cruel. News flash: When basically every party in Parliament—at least every party that cannot be bought off—rejects a reform, it is not some grand conspiracy or political bastardry; it is because the reform is that bad. Well done, really. It a remarkable feat to have put forward a piece of legislation so thoroughly odious that it unites The Greens, the Animal Justice Party, the Coalition and conservative Independents to defeat it. Hell, even their own backbenchers do not support it. Such is the utter hubris of the Premier and the Treasurer that they continue to paint opposition to their murderous bill as some sort of silly student politics, instead of taking a long hard look at themselves in the mirror, speaking with the rest of us like adults in order to sensibly negotiate, and putting forward better legislation.

But no, the Treasurer has doubled down on his obvious mistakes and is continuing to repeat the same misleading and deceptive excuses for putting forward legislation that will literally kill people. Yet again the Treasurer sought to conflate the Nominal Insurer with the Treasury Managed Fund [TMF] in his budget speech. Yet again the Treasurer ignored the 8 per cent premium increase already locked in by his Government for the next financial year. Yet again the Treasurer referred to a $2.6 billion "hit" to the budget from not cruelly cutting back entitlements in the manner he has deemed fit. Treasury officials in our Public Accountability and Works Committee hearing clarified the figure is closer to $343 million per year, the budget papers themselves put it somewhere near $500 million, and the assumptions on which any of those estimates are made are incredibly uncertain and highly unlikely to hold true. And yet again the Treasurer tries to make out that putting money into workers compensation stops the Government from putting money into prevention. That is clearly not the case, since this budget funds those prevention measures. The absurdity of the position is clear, but the Treasurer persists regardless in some Trumpian attempt to make matters true by simply stating them enough times. I expected better, and the people of New South Wales expected better from a Labor Treasurer.

A keen observer may have noticed that, despite being told there would be some catastrophe if we did not pass the workers compensation reforms by year end, apparently the State's finances are actually in such rude health that the Treasurer feels fit to crow about a potential return to surplus. Which is it? Are we in dire financial straits where the Government can no longer pay workers the entitlements it owes them through the TMF, or is this a government so proud of its fiscal management that it thinks it is going to get the budget back to surplus? It cannot be both ways. The Government cannot cry poor and claim that there is no choice but to boot seriously injured workers out of the workers compensation system because it does not want to pay them—noting that the Government is also the employer overseeing some of the most dangerous workplaces in our State—and then also tell everyone that there is so much excess money we are going to be in surplus soon. It simply cannot be both.

That brings us to the other key area in which this Government has comprehensively failed not only the people of this State but the fundamental values on which it claims its party was built—the failure to pay public sector workers a fair wage. In what universe did any of us think that two years after Labor won government we would be here, with nurses and midwives and even psychiatrists taking to the streets to protest the lack of fair wages and conditions being offered to them by this Labor Government? Do not even get me started about the debacle that has been this Government's approach to negotiating with rail workers. It is truly like we have entered some bizarro world where Labor is the party of big business and Liberal members in this place get taunted by Labor parties as "comrades" for daring to ask questions about why the Government is treating the workers of this State so poorly. My colleagues and I will have more to say on these issues during our various contributions to debates on the budget. Honestly, Labor members, do you recognise yourselves anymore?

I finish by commenting on the way in which this Government has hamstrung itself in this parliamentary term by making silly statements during the election along the lines of "no new taxes" and then deciding that this leads it to be unable to even do the most modest adjustments to taxes that would merely bring our levels up to those of other States and Territories. It is interesting that, while ripping up the promises it made to injured workers and the union movement during the election, it cannot bring itself to break such a stupid promise like its "no new taxes" promise. Every year I stand in the Chamber and talk about the billions of dollars the New South Wales government leaves on the table by not taking on vested interests and the big end of town. The most gobsmacking one at the moment is, of course, the failure to remove the subsidies currently granted to the pokies industry. We are too poor to pay fair wages and entitlements to public sector workers, apparently, but also quite happy to let the gambling lobby get away without paying its fair share into the State's coffers.

Over the years The Greens have consistently put forward a suite of sensible revenue raising measures that would more fairly tax the gambling industry, the fossil fuel industry, the big banks and other large corporations, as well as measures that would more fairly tax grotesque levels of wealth among the most fortunate in our society. Many of those measures would also go a long way to rebalancing the property market in favour of home buyers. I will not relitigate all of those excellent revenue raising ideas in this speech today, needless to say that a Government that fails to treat workers fairly while simultaneously failing to collect this kind of easy revenue from the big end of town is a government that is simply not managing its finances responsibly. My colleagues and I will have more to say about the budget as we digest it further. As always, we look forward to raising issues with each Minister in budget estimates.

Read the transcript in Hansard here.

26 June 2025