00:02Well, the Minns government has handed down its budget and it's filled with short-term
00:07cost of living relief sweeteners.
00:09But New South Wales is in $178 billion worth of debt and is set to record a deficit of
00:18$2.3 billion.
00:21Now, its long run of surpluses ended with the Black Summer bushfires and only ramped
00:27up with COVID and the pandemic.
00:30The Minns government has really focused on offering cost of living relief to New South
00:34Wales residents.
00:35They're offering up $100 off driver's registration as well as changes to the toll cap and they've
00:41also put a freeze on Opal Fares so that they won't increase.
00:46They're spending a record amount on health, $10.3 billion over the next four years with
00:52a focus on recruiting 9,000 extra workers across the state.
00:58After a long campaign to boost funding, domestic and family violence services across the state
01:04are going to get a 50% increase in funding.
01:08There's also $8.3 million allocated for the Jewish and Bondi communities in the wake of
01:15the Bondi Beach terror attacks last year to help those communities recover from that event.
01:22Now, Chris Minns, the Premier, said that with debt continuing to build, it's really a challenge
01:29to deal with because those critical revenue streams that the state has been used to relying
01:35on for years is slowing down.
01:38Yeah, we've taken a significant write down in the amount of revenue we were expecting
01:43from land tax and stamp duty.
01:45We've baked that into the budget over the next four years and it means that you have
01:49to make decisions.
01:50It's not the case that the states are in the position that they were in in the 2000s,
01:56for example, when there was just a massive annual windfall gain that would cover a multitude
02:01of sins and you didn't need to make difficult decisions.
02:03But the government has admitted that ongoing conflict in the Middle East, growing inflation
02:09and likely interest rate hikes in the future will continue to cause challenges for New South
02:15Wales' economy.
