NSW budget 2024 as it happened: State faces decade in the red as Treasurer Daniel Mookhey hands down budget

If you’re just joining us after work, there’s been a lot of news about the budget today. Here’s everything you need to know:

• NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey handed down his second state budget at noon.
• There weren’t a lot of sweeteners, but it wasn’t as gloomy as we were promised.
• We’re back in a deficit, but that will more than halve in the next while.
• $5.1 billion will be spent on new social housing.
• Doctors will be given an incentive to bulk-bill.
• Mookhey took a swipe at his predecessor, Liberal Matt Kean, during the budget lock up.
• And within a few hours, Kean had announced he was retiring from politics after 13 years.

As he announced his departure, Kean was joined by his partner Wendy and son, Tom, along with Liberal leader Mark Speakman, MPs Felicity Wilson and Eleni Petinos, and NSW Liberal Party state director Richard Shields. He did not intend on returning to parliament for the August sitting week.

Kean declined to say whether he had spoken to any companies, only saying repeatedly he did not have “anything finalised”.

“Nothing’s been finalised. I intend on pursuing a career in the private sector. I’ll have discussions that I’m looking forward to, opportunities that might come in the private sector to drive the energy transition,” he said.

He did not nominate a successor for his safe seat of Hornsby, saying it was a matter for Liberal Party branch members. His sudden resignation surprised many, with insiders believing it was Kean’s long-time colleague and former premier Dominic Perrottet who would be the first Liberal MP to announce their exit.

Kean was elected as the member for Hornsby in the Coalition’s 2011 landslide election win. He made his name after being appointed by former premier Gladys Berejiklian to the environment portfolio initially, before being handed responsibility for energy and climate.

Read the full story here.

The question everyone is asking about Matt Kean’s resignation: why now?

Kean said he had recently made the decision and wanted to tell everyone as soon as possible.

“What I wanted to do is make sure you’re aware of what’s going on as soon as possible. That’s why I’m standing here today. But nothing will overshadow the most shocking budget in modern history.

“Daniel Mookhey has broken the budget,” he said at the end of his press conference. “He’s left us with a decade of deficits. He’s blamed everyone but himself. I mean, the next excuse we’re going to hear is ‘The dog ate my surplus’.”

NSW Liberal MP Matt Kean has announced he will retire from politics to pursue a career in the private sector.

It comes after Daniel Mookhey took a swipe at the former Liberal MP earlier today, accusing him of being “the biggest-spending treasurer Australia’s had since the 1970s”.

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NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s carrot-and-stick approach to rebate GPs who bulk-bill most patients is a unique solution to a problem that has caused a headache for every state treasurer in the last 18 months.

Until a NSW court ruling in March last year, general practices had assumed payments made to contracted GPs were exempt from payroll tax because they were not technically classed as employees.

The Victorian and NSW state revenue offices then said GPs were subject to the tax, igniting a campaign by doctors to lobby governments to grant them an exemption. NSW is one of the last states to come up with a solution – giving a full payroll tax rebate to clinics that bulk-bill at least 70 per cent of appointments. Here’s how the other states compare:

• Western Australia was the first to rule out applying payroll tax to GPs altogether, saying most did not meet the $1 million tax-free threshold anyway.
• In September, Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick said GPs would not have to pay retrospective debts and ruled payments made to GPs (including Medicare benefits and out-of-pocket “gap fees”) would not be subject to payroll tax when paid directly by a patient to their GP
• In May, Victoria and South Australia agreed to forgive the debts and said an ongoing exemption would apply to all wages earned by GPs for bulk-billed services provided to patients.
• In Tasmania’s state election in March, both parties promised not to charge GPs payroll tax, effectively meaning business-as-usual for doctors in that state.

The government knew it had to make a significant investment in public housing in this budget, and it has done so. It would have been untenable in the midst of a housing crisis to ignore the state’s pressing need for more social housing while also demanding councils, the private sector and everybody else do more to boost supply. The $5.1 billion it has found for 8400 homes – most of it new money and budgeted over four years – is a decent commitment.

It’s more than the bare minimum Mookhey could have got away with. Although it’s just shy of the $5.3 billion Victoria’s government dedicated in 2020 amid the pandemic slump, which was forecast to build 12,000 homes. There’s also a chunk of money for more Department of Planning staff to assess projects. While it’s worthwhile to get housing built faster, it’s an admission of what most people in the sector know – the system is too complicated, too slow, and needs to be fixed.

Read all our analysis on the spending here.

Local GPs will be incentivised to bulk-bill most patients after the NSW government struck a deal to end a six-year stand-off with peak doctor bodies over payroll tax.

In Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s second state budget, the Labor government revealed it would waive GP debts totalling $104 million and introduce a full rebate for practices that bulk-bill at least 70 per cent of appointments.

“This is an important cost of living measure ... it’s also designed to reduce pressure on emergency departments,” Finance Minister Courtney Houssos said.

It is a rare intervention by a state government in primary healthcare policy, which is usually the responsibility of the federal government through Medicare.