The South Australian Government's proposed new bank tax has been slammed as an "outrageous cash grab" by the Australian Bankers' Association.

In the 2017-18 state budget announced today, the Government said major banks would be taxed a quarterly levy of 0.015 per cent on bonds and deposits over $250,000.

It will not apply to mortgages or ordinary household deposits, and is expected to raised about $370 million over the next four years.

It comes on top of a similar tax by the Federal Government.

"This is a tax with no justification. It is bad policy," Australian Bankers' Association chief executive Anna Bligh said.

"What this tax does is confirm everyone's worst fears about the state of the South Australian economy.

"At a time when South Australia needs business investment, when it needs to foster business confidence, when it needs the private sector to be as strong and as active as it could be, this could not send a worse message."

Ms Bligh said banks would fight the tax and do everything in their power "to ensure that this tax does not become a reality".

Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis was unapologetic about targeting the banks in this budget speech, and warned them not to pass the levy on to customers.

"If they start charging this [levy] to superannuants, to their shareholders and their deposit holders in any form of levy, they'll lose business," he said.

But Business SA said the bank tax would be passed onto consumers.

"The banks federally will pass it on, and I'm absolutely sure the banks will pass it onto South Australian consumers and small businesses," he said.

"If we're the only state in Australia that's actually putting a second layer of levy, is that the kind of message we want to send? I thought we were open for business."

Foreign investor surcharge raises concerns

Concerns have also been raised about the impact of a new 4 per cent conveyance duty surcharge on residential houses bought by foreign investors.

"If we rewind 12 months, the Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis described a foreign investor tax as xenophobic, so we'd like to know what's changed over the course of the last year," Property Council executive director Daniel Gannon said.

"Putting forward taxes on foreign buyers is a race to the bottom, and it won't increase our attractiveness as an investment destination," Mr Gannon said.

The conveyance duty will be charged from January 1, 2018, and reflects similar levies interstate.

No money for staff despite health infrastructure funding

An area where the Government is investing heavily is health infrastructure, with more than $1 billion to be spent on new and existing hospitals.

Stakeholders said funding to resource and staff that new infrastructure was missing from today's budget.

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"That infrastructure spending is well into the future and there doesn't seem to be a plan to staff the infrastructure, the hospitals, such as that it can deliver the care to the community," David Pope, from the Salaried Medical Officers Association, said.

"Clearly this is about boosting the economy with infrastructure build, and while that's good for building companies, that's not necessarily good for delivering health care for the patients of South Australia."

The Nursing and Midwifery Federation's chief executive Elizabeth Dabars agreed.

"This budget is really very much like the emperor's new clothes," she said.

"After you've looked at the hype about the capital spend, there's not going to be the money for patient care.

"We've got pressure on our hospital system, pressure on our patients, pressure on our staff, and under this budget that cannot possibly improve."