A Labor Government would have handed down a very different Budget, one based on very different foundations.
A Labor Budget would have delivered stimulus to our suburbs, the recovery to our regions and the comeback to country NSW.
We'd enact our NSW Jobs First Bill to make sure when we spend taxpayer funds on procurement we create local jobs and support industry and create the NSW Jobs First Advocate.
Our Building Better Neighbourhoods approach would deliver local jobs and infrastructure and a jobs guarantee in Badgerys Creek and the Aerotropolis.
We'd get women back to work through free access to pre-school for at least 18 months.
Young people would have guaranteed opportunities for employment, education and training. They'd get help and hope for the future.
Finally, we'd establish a Royal Commission into Mental Health and Suicide.
Mental health has been in the too hard basket for too long and people need a chance to share their stories so we can reform this broken system.
Instead we've seen a Budget that failed to deliver what is needed in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
It doesn't do enough to secure local jobs and it's built on the feeble foundations of an economy that was already stumbling before the crisis.
The economics don't stack up, borrowing on the one hand but selling revenue-generating assets on the other.
It's built on a failed stimulus response.
More than 90 per cent of small businesses have received no support of any kind - more than 710,000 left on their own.
Payroll tax relief went to less than half of all eligible businesses.
Landlords and tenants received only 15% of what was promised.
Too many who needed help have been overlooked.
This Budgets fails to set a vision and lay the foundations needed for NSW to rebuild and thrive in a post-COVID world.
We are in different times, yet there is nothing different in this Budget.
It's the same old Budget built on broken promises, privatisation and cutting workers' wages.
The same old template from a tired ten year old Government.
Of all the failings of this Budget, there are none greater than the failure to deliver for people.
A Budget is about more than numbers and spreadsheets.
The reason budgets are important - is because in every way they impact people and families.
This Budget has failed to deliver for people, for their families and communities.
It was a missed opportunity to support their jobs now and in the future.
The people of NSW deserved a better Budget, they deserved better from their Government.
Jodi McKay MP is the NSW Labor Leader
