Labor Party MLC Mick Veitch has stated: The economic divide between Sydney and the rest of NSW has reached alarming levels after the eighth budget delivered by the Liberal-National Government, further proving they have the wrong priorities. This year’s budget continued a trend of job cuts, service downgrades and under investment on vital infrastructure. Few in the bush would be feeling any better off as a result of this budget. Sydney has continued to get the lion’s share of the budget– with less than 15 percent of the total government expenditure on roads going to country NSW. West of the divide, spending was less than 10 percent of the total budget. While the Sydney stadium splurge was front and centre of the budget, vital upgrades to rural hospitals and schools were being ignored. A number of rural hospital rebuilds have been pushed back to the middle of the next decade, with regional school upgrades more of a wish list than a concrete plan.
The budget also had to be looked at in the context of eight years of neglect by the Liberal-National Government which has inflicted long-term damage on rural and regional NSW – job cuts, service downgrades and crumbling infrastructure. The NSW Opposition pointed to the cumulative impact of eight Coalition budgets, highlighting a recent report by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work which showed job cuts and downsizing had the greatest impacts on rural communities. National Part-held seats like Upper Hunter, Barwon, Murray and New England had been in the firing line, with some towns losing more than a quarter of its public sector workforce. In contrast, public servants were abundant on Sydney’s North Shore, with the Premier’s own electorate getting more than a 30 percent increase in public servants over the last seven years.
The growing divide between the city and the bush has been exacerbated through a reckless privatisation of public assets such as the electricity network – only to be wasted on a series of costly and wasteful road and transport projects in Sydney. “This is a city centric budget from a city centric government which has the wrong priorities for regional NSW. “Today’s budget confirmed the stadium splurge with important upgrades to country schools and hospitals pushed back or failing to have a budget allocation. “An Australia Institute report shows the cost of the wrong priorities – with small towns losing up to a quarter of their public servants over the last 7 years. “Besides losing workers, there are ongoing impacts on school sizes, access to health services, as well as ripping pay packets out of the local economy. “This budget does little to make up for the long-term structural damage that has been done by this Government to country NSW since 2011. “Along with rising power prices and overall cost of living pressures, these are the matters on which the National and Liberal Parties will be judged.”
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