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The Minns Labor Government understands that people in NSW are doing it tough right now. We hear your concerns and are working hard to find ways to help.
Our Budget lays out our long-term plan to repair, reprioritise and rebuild the NSW economy.
When the Minns Labor Government was elected, we promised to end the previous government's wasteful spending and direct it to where people need it most.
Our first budget has set out our long-term plan to achieve this by:
- Rebuilding essential services after 12 years of neglect
- Helping with cost-of-living pressures
- Confronting the housing crisis facing NSW
- Paying down the Liberal Party’s debt after wasteful spending and mismanagement of the State’s finances
- Ensuring we have reliable, renewable energy after a decade of inaction and indecision.
We will gradually repair the budget, reprioritise spending to where it is needed most, and rebuild essential services we all rely on.
These careful decisions will help prepare us to deal successfully with the challenges ahead without privatising public assets or imposing an unfair wage cap on workers who deliver our essential services.
Essential Services
Every person in NSW should have access to health, education, reliable power, and other essential services.
If we want a world-class health system we have to train, recruit and retain enough health workers to staff our hospitals.
If we want young people to have more opportunities than we do, we need to stop denying there is a teacher shortage - and instead act to solve it.
The 2023-24 NSW Budget lays out the Minns Labor Government’s long-term plan to repair the budget and rebuild the essential services that you rely on.
For Camden, this means:
- At least 112 more permanent teachers and support staff in schools across the Camden electorate
- Continuation of Stage 2 of Gledswood Hills Public School
- Construction of 48 permanent classrooms for Gregory Hills Public School.
- Construction of a new High School catering for students in Gregory Hills and Gledswood Hills.
Health
The Minns Labor Government’s first budget reprioritises spending to frontline health staff, to stem the flow of nurses leaving the profession and getting better patient outcomes.
- Recruiting an extra 1,200 nurses and introducing safe staffing levels
- Saving 1,112 positions for essential nurses and midwives left unfunded by the previous government, including 119 across the South Western Sydney Local Health District.
- Supporting 12,000 healthcare students with $4,000 annual study subsidies for new students
- $2.5 billion to recruit and retain health workers, including delivering the largest pay increase in more than a decade to our frontline healthcare workers.
The Minns Labor Government will also deliver enhanced paediatric and mental health services this year to Campbelltown Hospital through an investment of $53.5 million and $15 million will go towards planning for a new public hospital in the Western Sydney Parkland Region.
Cost-of-Living
In NSW, the cost-of-living crisis is worse due to a decade of privatisation by the previous Liberal Government. That is why this budget provides more than $8.2 billion in cost-of-living support through 100 different measures including:
- $500 in childcare fee relief per child for eligible families in Camden
- Pay rises for nurses and teachers across Camden.
- $500 in energy bill relief for eligible households across Camden
- $250 Pensioner Concession Rebate Scheme on ordinary Council rates and charges
- $250 increase to the Family Energy Rebate and Seniors Energy Rebate
- $350 increase to the Medical Energy Rebate and Low-Income Household Rebate.
Tolls and Road Infrastructure
Thousands of motorists in the State electorate of Camden will benefit from new toll relief under the NSW Government’s $60 motorway toll cap.
The toll cap will benefit an estimated 720,000 households across the State, with private motorists able to claim back spend above $60 a week via a quarterly refund from Service NSW.
The cashback scheme will start from January 1 2024, helping to ease cost-of-living pressures for many Camden families.
In Camden, qualifying motorists are expected to be eligible to claim on average $294 back in 2024 and again in 2025.
Modelling estimates that 4,893 households would qualify under the Minns Government toll cap for toll relief in Camden.
The Minns Labor Government is also delivering $72.3 billion in road and rail projects across the state, including planning for Spring Farm Parkway Stage 2 connecting the Hume High Way to Liz Kernohan Drive.
Funding will also be provided for upgrading key school safety crossings in Camden, assisting children to complete their journey to and from school in a safe manner.
Environment
$3.9 billion is being invested to deliver clean and affordable power, including:
- $1 billion towards establishing the Energy Security Corporation to drive investment in affordable renewable energy
- $263 million towards increasing electric vehicle uptake.
$88 million is being invested to protect Koalas and secure their habitat in South-West Sydney, including:
- establishing the Georges River Koala Park,
- creating koala-friendly crossings, and
- providing for Koala Care
This $88 million dollar package for koalas in south-west Sydney is part of the new $172 million investment for the conservation of koalas in the wild which includes the creation of the Great Koala National Park on the NSW Mid North Coast.
Housing
Housing affordability and availability is the biggest single pressure facing the people of NSW, with mortgage payments and rent the largest expense for most households.
After more than a decade of inaction and neglect from the former government the Minns Labor Government is committed to rebuilding our housing system. We are:
- Committing $2.2 billion to our Housing and Infrastructure Plan to address the historic neglect of new housing supply
- $38.7 million Faster Planning Program to cut red tape and accelerate the building of new homes
- Establishing Homes NSW to deliver better outcomes for public and social housing tenants and to deliver more affordable and social housing. This will also relieve pressure on the private rental market
- Implementing a Portable Rental Bonds Scheme to ease financial pressure when moving house
- Expanding stamp duty exemptions and concessions to help five out of every six first home buyers to pay less or no stamp duty.
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