State Treasurer, Eric Roozendall, lives and socialises with the rich and famous in Sydney’s wealthy Eastern Suburbs. Rose Bay is a plush harbourside jewel with ready access to world-class health, transport and education facilities.
Roozendall’s zeal towards the maintenance of a AAA credit rating for NSW is more an application for a post-political job at the big end of town than a platform for the economic reform needed to get NSW moving again. It certainly has little to do with increasing the quality of life for working families in Western Sydney and beyond. They can eat cake as far as Roozendall is concerned.
Labor’s army of spin doctors have been working overtime to bedazzle punters with an array of statistics to dupe them into believing State finances will be back in the black next year, Yeh, sure!
Now the spin has settled it has been revealed that Labor’s figures are based on an assumption that government expenditure will be limited to 2.7 per cent. This is a huge leap of faith for a government with an average growth in expenditure over the past four years has been 6.5 per cent. If this average is maintained this financial year with no changes in revenue then NSW will post a record $2 billion deficit.
Does anybody believe that Labor will crash-tackle their bloated public service unions? Pigs will fly before this happens.
But This won’t concern the Treasurer though because by then he will have hoodwinked enough voters ong enough to get Labor re-elected – or he will be working in a private company at the big end of town. If this happens voters will be left to chant ‘Labor’, ‘Labor’, Labor’ – ‘A’,’A’,’A’ as they sit in traffic gridlock every day.
Macarthur residents are the big losers in the budget. The $20,000 cap on developer donations to councils is destined to widen the social gap between Labor’s trendy inner-city suburbs and our South West growth centre. Given the revenue restraints already imposed on local Council’s it is necessary for a cap of at least $40,000. Not only will new residents in our growth areas now have to go without essential community facilities normally funded by developer donations ,they will also have to endure worsening traffic congestion on Camden Valley Way, Narellan Road and the M5 because there is nothing in the budget to fix these chronic problems.
Under Labor the South West Rail link which has previously been announced, then unannounced, then reannounced, has been pushed back to the never0never in 2016.
Labor Member for Camden, Geoff Corrigan, got it right when he said NSW Labor was operating in a parallel universe. This budget indicates they are still there.
