Today in Parliament, Abigail tore apart NSW Labor's so-called responsible budget. It is a budget that hands over a billion dollars in tax breaks to pokies operators, foreign landlords and private schools, pockets $1 billion from injured workers' entitlements, calls a quarter of what the domestic violence sector actually needs a 50 per cent increase, and leaves people with disability, early childhood workers, animals and the climate with next to nothing. All while refusing to touch the banks, billionaires and fossil fuel companies that could afford to pay more taxes.
Abigail said:
On behalf of The Greens, as our Treasury spokesperson, I respond to Labor's 2026-27 budget and the Appropriation Bill 2026 and cognate bills that implement it. I note at the outset that my colleagues and I will separately contribute, both in this place and in the lower House, in more detail on aspects of the budget within our portfolios as we delve deeper into the budget papers, including during budget estimates. The New South Wales Labor Government needs to read the room. We are in the midst of one of the most profound crises affecting household finances in generations, compounding inequality and hardship right across our communities. The latest NSW Council of Social Service data shows that one in three households in poverty have been pushed into poverty only in the past few years. Some 53 per cent of households in poverty are in extreme housing stress, a 33 per cent increase since Labor came to power in 2023. Meanwhile the social housing waitlist has blown out to over 70,000—that is 15,000 more than June 2023, which is a 27 per cent increase.
The budget shows just how out of touch establishment political parties like Labor are with the real needs of everyday working people in our State. People are sick of token gestures. Labor will tell us that this is a responsible budget, but we have to ask, responsible to who? It is not responsible to the people on the housing waitlist, not to the workers holding up our hospitals, and not to the kids who will inherit the climate we are failing to protect. The Labor Government needs to front up and explain to every nurse, teacher, cleaner, builder, community sector worker and every other hardworking person in this State why there are over a billion dollars in tax exemptions for pokies, tax cuts for foreign commercial landlords and property developers, and hundreds of millions in tax breaks for private schools with palatial grounds, but free public transport, fully funded public schools, and properly funded public health services are apparently unaffordable. The people holding this State together are the people this budget has left behind.
I have heard the Treasurer's talking points on this budget, reframing what is effectively an austerity budget as a responsible use of the nurse's money. But the only money this Government is careful with is the profits of the pokies operators, of the big banks and of the fossil fuel companies. The Treasurer should not spend the nurse's money; he should spend the banker's money and the billionaire's money. The fact is that the budget constraints that the Treasurer claims he is acting within are constraints of the Treasurer's own making. The fact is that every year the Treasurer fails to have the courage and creativity to raise additional revenue for the State from those who can most afford it. There is no excuse for the Treasurer's cowardly retreat on removing subsidies for pokies operators and failing to redirect billions towards the services that people in this State rely on. While the Labor Government cries poor and claims it cannot afford to lift families' living standards in any significant way, it is only because it has failed, once again, to take money from those not paying their fair share—the fossil fuel industry, gambling companies, big banks and the very wealthy, just to name a few. A budget that is actually responsible would raise the revenue to fix what is broken.
For years, The Greens have consistently offered constructive options for how the Government can increase revenue in order to better fund the universal services our community desperately needs. Those proposals include a supplementary banking levy that taxes banks on the assets they hold in New South Wales, raising at least $600 million each year; a vacancy tax for properties left empty for more than six months in areas with high levels of housing stress; a progressive payroll tax system that expands in scope to capture rideshare, delivery and other gig worker platforms as well as consulting firms and others currently dodging basic taxes; an extreme wealth property tax, which would require owners of residential owner-occupied properties with a land value of more than $10 million, or an improved value of more than $20 million, to pay a flat 4 per cent land tax; and a luxury motor vehicle duty that progressively increases taxation on cars according to their retail market price.
Not content with failing to introduce progressive tax reform that is desperately needed to shift power and money back into the hands of over eight million people in New South Wales, this Government is instead doubling down on its previous mistakes and also offering more concessions in this budget for property developers, and worsening the housing crisis in the process. The Revenue and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026, cognate with the appropriation bills, sets out generous subsidies for foreign investors in retirement villages and build‑to‑rent developments. The bill seeks to provide surcharge purchaser duty relief for purchases of operational built-to-rent properties from 1 July 2026. A new surcharge purchaser duty relief measure will also apply from 1 July 2026 for eligible retirement village developers and operators.
The Greens have long been opposed to the build-to-rent model. Back in 2020, when the then Coalition Government opened the door to that form of private investment in the housing market, I commented that this is an asset class reliant on foreign investment for it to be viable, and I stated then that the likes of Mirvac were at the time running around trying to get Australian jurisdictions to adopt two key reforms that they said were essential for pushing the sector forward: the surplus tax on foreign investors and land tax. I went on to say:
The build‑to‑rent concept focuses on increasing the supply of rental housing through improving investment options and outcomes for institutional investors such as large banks, insurance companies and superannuation funds, where often the beneficial holder is far removed from the day-to-day management of the property. It is not about increasing the housing opportunities for tenants and for individuals in New South Wales. Those investors are investing in this asset class purely for profit, as they are set up to do. Removing tax barriers will increase returns for investors and make that asset class more attractive as a result.
The nature of corporate institutional landlords is that they are seeking to maximise their profits. That will always mean that the experiences and rights of tenants are subservient to the profits of the investors. Experience overseas shows high rates of corporate and institutional landlords evicting tenants en masse and then maximising rent increases across the board. Without very strong safeguards for tenants those schemes will result in higher rents and lower housing security.
It was only in September last year that this Government last introduced legislation to give more tax concessions for build-to-rent developers—and here we are again. Last September I said:
… investment arrangements like build to rent will have price escalation above inflation built into their contractual terms, pouring fuel on the cost‑of‑living fire and extracting more and more from the public while cashing in on bargain‑basement tax settings.
As Blackstone has put it so bluntly, build-to-rent projects are "an opportunity to generate rental income growth that outstrips rising inflation". In its own words, it is designing an investment asset that will drive up the cost of living and drive up inflation while printing regular streams of money. The further tax concessions being given by the Labor Government in the budget are yet another blatant example of corporate welfare for the most extraordinarily wealthy billionaires around the world while ordinary people in New South Wales go without.
I now turn to the lack of investments in energy and climate. Investment and expenditure in renewable energy and climate change mitigation are almost nowhere to be seen in the budget. The Labor Government is running around trying to claim it is the champion of renewable energy, but the renewable story under Labor is simply supporting $77 billion of private investment. Under Labor, the State is at best a facilitator, not an investor. The actual State investment in the budget for renewable energy is $291 million for roads servicing renewable energy zones. That is it, and it is not like that is a nice-to-have. Public ownership of energy resources is essential for any sovereign capacity and industrial policy. The Labor Government will run around decrying the privatisation of our electricity networks but then does nothing to bring them back into public hands. That comes at a real cost. One only needs to look at the example of the Tomago Aluminium smelter in the budget papers to understand just one component of the impacts of losing our energy sovereignty. Budget Paper No. 01 states:
Unlike the Australian and Queensland Governments, New South Wales no longer owns any electricity generation businesses and cannot directly offer a power purchase agreement.
The 2026-27 Budget includes a provision for NSW to contribute, pending the Australian Government finalising its negotiations with the smelter.
The Government openly states that New South Wales is powerless to directly assist. The privatisation hangover has left the State with no public power lever and it is now stuck writing blank cheques to major industry. But even that contingency is puny in comparison to what is needed. Because what is needed to save Australia's largest aluminium smelter from closure is a public ownership stake and an underwriting and public ownership of the clean energy build-out to power the smelter to support the green transition. It is an opportunity to both put workers first and accelerate the transition out of fossil fuels, not just deliver another Glencore-style corporate bailout that offers no public benefit.
Australia will be a world leader in green aluminium; the job of the Government is to support workers and be a bridge from existing infrastructure. Tomago smelter workers deserve job security, not more uncertainty as another facility faces closure. But, once again, the Labor Government lacks the vision and desire to fundamentally take the power back when it comes to our energy system and industrial sectors. Environmental spending in the budget falls woefully short. There is $192.5 million over three years for threatened species protection and $130 million for national parks facilities. Against a biodiversity and extinction crisis, $65 million per year for threatened species is a rounding error. There is no new climate adaptation fund of scale. Natural disaster spending is reactive. But that natural disaster spending is aplenty—billions spent and budgeted for restoring essential public assets damaged by natural disasters.
Those costs will only increase and deepen, creating risks to the State budget and devastation in our communities. But the Labor Government has failed to meet the moment. We need a massive build-out of public investment in publicly owned and operated renewable energy, which can deliver price certainty for industry and drive down power bills for households. Instead, the Labor Government is sticking with a business as usual approach that will see the benefits of the transition delayed and reserved for big business while households struggle. The budget shows just how deep, cruel and unnecessary the recent cuts to workers compensation entitlements for workers in New South Wales really were. The Treasurer cut so deep that he has pulled $1 billion in pure profit out of the Treasury Managed Fund and paid it back to himself in general revenue.
Those reforms were never about stabilising a scheme, making it fit for the future and protecting other entitlements for workers; it was a bald, naked, shameless cash grab. Because the $1 billion is not even about avoided expenditure, of which there is apparently $2.6 billion—but, let us be honest, there is probably much more. It is about taking money back that had already been appropriated and allocated towards covering the entitlements of injured public sector workers from previous years. The legislation that slashed the entitlements of psychologically injured teachers, nurses and child protection workers barely received assent before Treasurer Mookhey withdrew $1 billion from the funds already set aside to look after those workers injured in the course of their work. That is $1 billion return out of the Treasury Managed Fund in 2025-26 and the TMF funding ratio remains above 100 per cent.
The accounting ratio, the more appropriate ratio for measuring those liabilities, is undisclosed but obviously even higher. The budget and its so-called financial repair is built on the misery and hardship of tens of thousands of public servants injured in the course of their work—and the Treasurer is proud of his work and that of the New South Wales Labor Government. That is shameful. I turn to the spend for domestic and family violence. Looking at the headlines, one might mistakenly presume that the budget is finally meeting the calls of the domestic and family violence sector for a 50 per cent increase in core funding for existing specialist services. The Government's media release states:
The Minns Labor Government will invest an additional $184.1 million to increase funding by 50 per cent for six frontline specialist domestic and family violence programs over the next four years to help keep more women and children safe.
…
We have listened to the sector about the challenges they face. This investment is designed to stabilise services, expand capacity and fund hundreds of additional specialist workers in communities across NSW.
At first glance, it sounds quite remarkable. After all, the sector has been pleading for a 50 per cent increase in core funding for over a decade—a call that has been ignored time and again. To the Government's credit, this is the largest uplift in core funding that frontline services have seen in decades, and the additional funding will indeed provide some relief to workers on the front line. Any additional money is welcome when frontline workers are overworked and using their own money to keep their doors open so they do not have to turn victim‑survivors away when they reach out for help. Of course, any additional money is welcome when there has not been a core funding increase in any State budget in over a decade.
But, while the New South Wales Government has finally loosened the purse strings, it has not listened to the sector, and the way that it has spun the investment is quite cruel. It actually boils down to a 50 per cent increase over a four-year period, which is only an additional $46 million each year on top of what frontline services currently get through contracted service delivery. It is only one-quarter of what the sector asked for, and will barely touch the surface of the crushing weight of rising demand facing frontline services. Domestic Violence NSW, the peak body for specialist domestic and family violence services in New South Wales, comprising approximately 200 member organisations across the State, called for an additional $177.4 million in just one year for 2026‑27. Accounting for a 2.5 per cent increase each year for annual inflation and population growth, that equates to roughly an additional $798 million over four years.
That is the absolute bare minimum that the sector needs to meet rising demand. If the Labor Government had genuinely listened to the sector and the challenges it faces like it claims to have done, it would have delivered that funding. To spin the budget as delivering on that is an obfuscation of the truth and frankly insulting to the experts who have spent years on the front line and years quantifying what is needed to tackle the domestic and family violence crisis. The budget also makes no increase in funding for women's refuges, which is such an incredibly outrageous failure of the Labor Government. There is no increase in funding for the implementation of the Government's primary prevention strategy and workforce development strategy, which are both severely underfunded.
There is zero funding to roll out the quality standards and zero funding for a regional loading to support services in areas where recorded rates of domestic and family violence related assaults are 70 per cent higher than those in Greater Sydney and are increasing at a much faster rate. With every budget it has handed down, I have become increasingly outraged and disappointed in the Labor Government and at its utter lack of compassion for vulnerable people in our community. That is exactly what we have seen when it comes to frontline domestic violence funding. The Greens will always fight for fully funded frontline domestic and family violence services.
One welcome investment is the $8.5 million to establish the new, independent commissioner for victims of crime, which The Greens campaigned in support of for many years leading up to last year, when the Government finally introduced and passed a bill to follow through with this important reform. This is a welcome start to set up the new commissioner, but I must once again put on the record my reservations and concerns, which are that this is very likely to become yet another statutory agency, tasked with acting in the interests of vulnerable people in our community, that is not given the resourcing needed to properly do so. This is exactly what we have seen and continue to see with the Ageing and Disability Commission.
The Ageing and Disability Commission was, essentially, set up to fail with its limited funding model. Both the former and current commissioners have resolutely argued that the commission must be funded on a demand-based model. And yet, year after year, we continue to see it given small injections of funding despite resounding evidence showing that demand for its services continues to grow. This budget has allocated $4 million in additional funding to the Ageing and Disability Commission. Again, while this is certainly a welcome investment, it is by no means the same as if the commission were guaranteed secure, ongoing, sustainable funding based on rising demand. Vulnerable people benefit immensely from the commission's frontline and systemic advocacy work, and we should not be holding our breath each budget cycle to see whether the government of the day has given a one-off injection of funding to help it meet demand.
People with disability in New South Wales, hoping that this budget might have something that will make a tangible difference in their lives, would, sadly, be sorely mistaken. While Federal Labor is gutting the NDIS and treating the disability community like a pawn in its cruel political agenda, people are turning to the New South Wales Government for answers. They are hoping that there will be even a sliver of a safety net to catch them and provide some kind of support to help them live safe, dignified and equal lives in our community. It has already been decided that State governments will be responsible for funding, designing and delivering a significant portion of disability supports. The first batch of foundational supports is due to start becoming available by the end of this year, through Thriving Kids. We all know that this is only for children under nine, with autism, who have low to moderate support needs. It does not guarantee ongoing access. Tens of thousands of people across New South Wales have no idea what supports they will be able to access once the NDIS cuts are made. Some have already lost essential, daily supports over the last few years.
People in our community are anxious about what their futures will hold if the New South Wales Government does not step in to fill the gaps. That is why it was so disappointing to see this year's budget—with $631.9 million over five years, or around $126 million each year, with only a fraction of that actually being funded by New South Wales, as opposed to the Federal Commonwealth funding—dedicated only to one cohort of people in need. It will not come close to funding the creation of a system of statewide foundational supports for all people with disability in our community. If neither the Federal Government nor the State Government provide enough funding for foundational supports for everyone who needs them in our community, people will fall through the gaps. That will create a real risk of exclusion, social isolation and exploitation. The Greens are calling on the New South Wales Labor Government to finally step up and make sure this does not happen. Now is the time to act and to start building a network of foundational supports that guarantee equal and fair access, regardless of what your disability is, how old you are or where you live. They should be fully funded and co-designed with disability communities, experts and workers.
If you look through the budget papers beyond Thriving Kids and funding for the Ageing and Disability Commission, you see that this is where new investment in disability inclusion ends. There is no new investment in speeding up our progress on making our public transport system independently accessible for people with disability. In March last year Transport for NSW confirmed that, on our current trajectory, it will take at least another 47 years until all train stations in New South Wales are fully accessible. At that time 100 stations will still not be independently accessible. Over a year later, we are still in exactly the same position. There is no new funding to fast-track accessibility upgrades and our current plan still moving at a snail's pace. There is also no new investment in wheelchair-accessible taxis. That is despite the fact that we were promised longer-term reforms, including sustainable funding, over a year and a half ago. At that time the Government announced its so-called emergency funding package of $15 million.
The disability royal commission made abundantly clear that people with disability continue to experience exclusion, violence, abuse, neglect and poorer life outcomes because mainstream systems—including our systems for health, housing, education, employment, transport and justice—do not meet their needs. We know exactly what is needed to make these systems accessible, inclusive and safe for every single person with disability in our community. We just need a government with the courage to do it.
This Labor Government has shown itself to be a worse government for animals than even the Coalition Government before it. There is just $13.7 million for animal welfare in this budget, which is intended to somehow fund both the frontline work of charitable organisations tasked with enforcing our animal welfare and protection laws, as well as the establishment of a new, independent office of animal welfare. This is an incredibly small amount of funding for such important things and substantially less than what has been provided in previous years. In addition, the Government has not even been able to tell us exactly how much is for the RSPCA and the Animal Welfare League and how much is earmarked for the independent office. We still have no idea what it will look like.
The most absurd thing is the sheer irony of putting funding for a supposedly independent office of animal welfare under the subheading "Primary Industries". The entire concept behind an independent office and the campaign that Labor championed before the last election is built upon understanding that there exists an inherent conflict of interest when responsibility for animal agriculture and animal welfare sit under the same department and Minister with the core purpose of driving stronger primary industries. From greyhound racing cruelty to illegal knackeries, horrific factory farming conditions to mass kitten and puppy farms, animals in our State continue to be neglected, abused, exploited and killed every day in the name of profit, with no direct oversight or accountability. We can and must change the status quo when it comes to our animal welfare framework. That starts with making sure the interests of animals are at the front and centre.
I turn now to early childhood education and care. Whether people's concern is with having good centres to enable parents more easily to work or with ensuring that all children have the best early education and care possible for the sake of their developmental needs, there is almost peanuts in this budget for them. And, if people are members of the hardworking professional workforce, weathering the latest storms in a heavily corporatised sector facing a reckoning, the Government has well and truly turned its back on them. Where is the money to fund the wages needed to keep our community preschools afloat?
Why, after the Industrial Relations Commission's judgement made it patently clear to the Government that it was simply wrong when it came to its responsibility to fund these services and patently wrong when it came to the misinformation it has been pedalling about the financial position of these services, has it still failed to make the funding commitment that would ensure that the excellent staff members in these services are given the wage rises they need? How, after everything we have learned from the early childhood crisis over the last two years, the clear statistics showing that community preschools offer a safer and better service and after the recommendations made in our education committee's inquiry on the need to bolster these not-for-profit services and adopt measures to retain and attract workers, can NSW Labor defend its intransigence on this issue?
It is particularly galling when you dig into the budget papers and see the massive underspending from the NSW Childcare and Economic Opportunity Fund [CEOF]. The CEOF, set up by the Coalition Government in 2022, had as its objective "to increase participation in the State's workforce, particularly for women, by making quality childcare more affordable and accessible". When the fund was established, I argued that this was looking at the value of early learning from the wrong perspective. Would it not be lovely if we could look at it from the perspective of children? Nevertheless, the 2022 Act stated this, which I may have had a hand in inserting:
(2) To achieve this object, this Act aims to—
…
(c) support the early childhood education and care workforce and sector.
At establishment, the CEOF was touted an investment of up to $5 billion. Under section 18 of the Act, a minimum amount was to be appropriated out of the Consolidated Fund into the CEOF: $100 million in 2023-24, $270 million in 2024-25 and $405 million in 2025-26. Thereafter, it was stated that $650 million per year would be invested in the fund. However, when we look at the budget, we find that, of the $405 million allocated to the fund last year, only $92 million was spent. Why was the other $312 million not spent towards adequately funding the wages of the 700-plus community preschools across the State? That is before you look at the amounts not spent out of the fund in earlier years.
Out of the $100 million invested in 2023-24, only $40 million was spent. In 2024-25, only $75.5 million of the $270 million was spent. That is $567.5 million over the term of Labor's government appropriated to the fund but not actually spent and only $207.5 million spent. What exactly is the Treasurer doing with that extra half a billion dollars that could and should have been spent on supporting the early childhood education and care workforce and sector? Added to the $650 million allocated to the fund in this financial year, we are talking about over $1.2 billion in available funds. What gives?
Speaking of available funds, the Treasurer's slush fund—sorry, contingency fund—has increased again this year and is now over $1 billion. Presumably, this will be used to finance a flurry of election initiatives over the next nine months. I know the way establishment parties like to do things ahead of elections, but a bit more honesty and transparency in the State's budget documents would be preferable.
Read the full debate in Hansard here.
25 June 2026