Parliamentary budget office finds government’s net borrowing would increase from $38.6bn to almost $46bn

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Independent analysis of the New South Wales Coalition’s costings shows the party would have to borrow an extra $7.3bn to help fund its election commitments.

The parliamentary budget office on Monday released its budget impact statements for both the Coalition and Labor.

The PBO found the government’s net borrowing would increase from $38.6bn to almost $46bn over the forward estimates.

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The budget would be $700m worse off under the Coalition over the forward estimates compared with the current projection, while it would increase under Labor by $1.4bn.

However, Labor’s plan to abolish the 2.5% wages cap with the intention of increasing pay for public sector workers wasn’t costed by the PBO.

The NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, said if the wages cap crept up to 3.5% it would leave a $5.1bn hole in the state surplus over the forward estimates.

Meanwhile, costing of Labor’s plan to make public transport for children and students free did not factor in additional bus or train services being added to the network to service demand.

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The PBO said Transport for NSW had warned there was limited existing capacity to absorb demand.

The opposition treasury spokesman, Ryan Park, warned the Coalition would have to consider privatising more public assets to pay for the additional $7bn in borrowings.

Meanwhile, Labor’s luxury car and boat tax – meant to raise $240m to pay for more nurses – fell short by $13m, according to the impact statement.

On Monday the NSW opposition leader, Michael Daley, was forced to defend a video from 2018 in which he said young people “will flee” Sydney and are being replaced by “young people from typically Asia with PhDs”.

The footage shows comments made in September during a Politics in the Pub session in Wentworth Falls, the Daily Telegraph reported.

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Daley went on to explain it was a statement of fact that young people are moving out of Sydney because they cannot afford to live there and are being replaced by international workers, mostly from Asia.

“It’s not a bad thing because Asian kids are coming to work here, it’s a bad thing because I’d like my daughter to be living in Maroubra rather than St Kilda,” he reportedly said.

A spokesman for Daley told the Daily Telegraph the Labor leader “was discussing cost of living and housing affordability pressures on young people in Australia’s only global city”.