NSW 2025-26 BUDGET COMMENTARY
26th June 2025
We needed the NSW Budget to create growth, not just catch up with it.
Towards a projected return to surplus from 2027, government can't rely on tight budgets to explain why the Hunter's advocacy priorities are left out.
The Budget continued investment in growth infrastructure including roads, health, schools, communities and justice. While rolling out essential clean energy infrastructure in the Hunter that will service the State.
Kate Washington, Minister for Families and Communities and Member for Port Stephens led announcements on a record $1.2 billion investment into the State’s out-of-home care system, informed by the journeys and conditions experienced by the Hunter’s most marginalised children.
But we needed this budget to create growth, not just catch up with it.
The Treasurer acknowledges the Hunter is moving into an unprecedented period and is a model for sustaining living standards through change. But we have much higher ambitions for our region than keeping our head above water, we want and deserve a better future and quality of life than today.
Our vision is for the Hunter to be the leading region globally for transition, and there is strong alignment on the investments that will catalyse growth and secure our prosperous future.
In a pre-budget interview with the Herald, the Treasurer said he was being led by the evidence on funding for a replacement of Newcastle’s end-of-life entertainment centre.
But to be thrown into the same basket as other parts of the state also campaigning for entertainment facilities ignores the context and need for this project; real jobs and futures rely on it and other priorities including Newcastle Airport, Broadmeadow, a step change in public transport funding and John Hunter Hospital Stage 2 and innovation precinct.
While the $27 million commitment to establish Future Jobs and Investment Authorities is a positive step forward, we understand we are processes away before Hunter councils can access a dollar created by Hunter coal royalties to grow a job on projects they know will deliver.
We agree facts and merit should drive major public investment decisions, but projects that tackle our $95 billion economy in transition with 55,000 jobs at risk did not clear the hurdles for inclusion in this year’s budget.
We have consistently engaged with the NSW Government on these priorities, including when in Opposition. Stakeholders have done all the hard work in generating and prioritising proposals for funding support and speaking with a unified voice.
The onus is now on the NSW government to explain why the evidence has not led to more focus and investment in the Hunter in this budget, and why their priorities don't align to our homegrown plan for growth.
Read our CEO Alice Thompson's commentary in The Newcastle Herald here
