23 June 2026
Today NSW Greens Spokesperson for Treasury, Abigail Boyd, has said that the Minns Government’s 2026/27 Budget is a missed opportunity to help millions of people struggling to pay their bills.
“Millions of people in NSW are living in poverty, many of them pushed below the poverty line in just the last few years, and the Minns Labor government is boasting of how little they’ve spent to help them.
“Labor needs to read the room. We’re in the midst of one of the most profound crises affecting household finances in generations, compounding inequality and hardship right across our communities. Rather than rising to meet the moment, NSW Labor is managing the optics, not the crisis.
“The latest NCOSS data shows that 1 in 3 households in poverty have been pushed into poverty only in the past few years. 53% of households in poverty are in extreme housing stress, a 33% increase since Labor came to power in 2023.* Meanwhile the social housing waitlist has blown out to over 70,000**, 15,000 more than June 2023, a 27% increase.
“This Budget just shows 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.
“When the Treasurer talks about being careful with the nurse's money, ask him why he's so careful with the pokies operator's profits too. Don’t spend the nurse’s money, Treasurer. Spend the bankers’ and the billionaires’.
“Minns and Mookhey need to front up and explain to every nurse, teacher, cleaner, builder, community sector worker and every other hardworking person in this state why there’s 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 that 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 left behind. Every person living in poverty in NSW is a policy failure, and a failure of this government and this budget.
“Labor will tell you this is a responsible budget, but you have to ask, responsible to who? It’s not responsible to the people on the housing waitlist, not to the workers holding up our hospitals, not to the kids who'll inherit the climate we’re failing to protect.
“An actually responsible budget would raise the revenue to fix what's 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.
These 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’ 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% land tax.
- A luxury motor vehicle duty that progressively increases taxation on cars according to their retail market price.
“There is no excuse for the Treasurer’s cowardly retreat on removing subsidies for pokies operators and failing to redirect billions towards the services people in this state rely on.
“The Greens are calling on the Minns Labor government to have the courage to raise revenue from those who ought to be paying a fair share–the fossil fuel industry, gambling companies, big banks and the very wealthy–in order to provide a better life for the people of New South Wales.”
* https://ncoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/NCOSS_CostOfLivingSnapshot_JUNE26_ART_R2_we
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