Last Friday it was my pleasure to host the NSW Premier, Chris Minns here in Wakehurst. 

We caught up with local legends at Collaroy SLSC, met staff and clients of Sargood on Collaroy and attended school assembly and morning tea at NBSC Cromer Campus.

As part of the 2024-2025 NSW Budget, Premier Minns announced funding for NBSC Cromer Campus to commence planning for a new multi-purpose indoor sports facility.  In addition to sports, the facility will host all-school assemblies, exams, music and other performances.

Premier Chris Minns and Michael Regan present Cromer’s U16 Basketball team with gold medals for winning the State Championship.

This has been long advocated for by myself and the local community, with recent growth in the Cromer student population demanding an upgrade to school facilities. The multi-purpose indoor sports facility will be used by Cromer students during school hours, as well as local community groups and sports clubs after hours, on weekends and school holidays. How awesome!

Thanks go to Cromer Campus principal Justin Hong and P&C President Jackie Reavie for their committed leadership and advocacy. Outstanding effort team.

I look forward to working with the school and sporting groups to ensure the final design delivers a great outcome that meets the needs of the whole community!

For Wakehurst, I was pleased to see the investment in planning for the NBSC Cromer Campus upgrade formally in the Budget Papers - one of only a handful of new Major Works commitments for public schools across the state. 

$9.9m in funding allocations continue this year for major upgrades to the Wakehurst Parkway, with works scheduled to start later this year. $83 million is allocated to complete the construction of the new Forest High School in Allambie Heights, opening late 2025. $26m for the Zero Emissions Bus Program will be felt here in Wakehurst with the first electric buses rolling out of Brookvale depot early 2025.

I was pleased to secure $48m in the Budget to roll out the successful Staying Home Leaving Violence program across Northern Sydney, in addition to the 36 other remaining LGAs across NSW. 

My office receives a lot of complaints from bus passengers about the Transport for NSW app, so I am heartened to see an investment of $157m in the next generation of the Opal system and $4m in the Bus Transport Management System, which will mean better live bus tracking and user experience on our buses.   

From 1 November, solar/battery and battery-only systems will be subsidised by the NSW Government. But I will continue to advocate for funding to make solar-only systems cheaper. My interest-free solar loans policy has significant ongoing benefits for households, NSW and the environment.

Zooming out, the NSW 2024/25 Budget shows the key difference between the major parties.  The Labor government’s focus is very much on building more homes, compared to the previous coalition government’s focus of building more infrastructure. It is hoped the shift in focus will free up construction workers to build more homes.

The Minns Labor government will make the biggest in investment in public housing in the state’s history, reversing the previous government’s policy of selling public housing to fund repairs. 

This investment includes:

1.  $5.1 billion on building 8,400 social homes – with half of those specifically for women and children fleeing domestic violence. 6,200 will be brand-new builds and the remaining will be knock-down rebuilds of existing stock in disrepair.

1. $450 million to build essential worker housing for nurses, paramedics, teachers, allied health care workers, police officers and firefighters to rent at a subsidised rate in areas closer to the city, their jobs and services.

To date, the NSW public land audit has identified 44 sites on which 30,000 homes can be built. When a site is released, Homes NSW will have the first right to develop public housing, followed by state-owned developer Landcom and then private developers. The government expects to unlock 21,000 market and affordable (or subsidised) dwellings from the identified land. 

Here are selection of key spending initiatives:

• The government will introduce bulk-billing support, which means GPs who bulk-bill 80 per cent or more of their patients will not be charged payroll tax, incentivising them to provide affordable healthcare. It will cost $188 million over four years;

• $481 million over four years for an emergency department relief package, including urgent care services to keep people out of hospitals;

• $112 million over four years to support community mental health and wellbeing initiatives, as well as $130.9 million for programs to boost lifelong maternal and child health;

• $1 billion for roads around western Sydney’s new airport set to open in 2026;

• $528 million for homelessness services and $224 million to rebuild the state’s foster care system. Did you know homelessness doubled over the past year on the beaches? And that is just what we can see.

• NSW Rental Taskforce will receive $8.4 million. The taskforce will work with Fair Trading NSW and be led by the NSW rental commissioner, who has the power to crack down on poor quality properties and dodgy landlords.

• Essential workers struggling with rising grocery prices will receive a $1,000 cost-of-living adjustment to protect essential workers against any unexpected “substantial” increase in inflation.

• Charity Royal Far West will receive $2.3 million to provide specialist wellbeing services for regional children with complex development concerns. I have been working with my rural and regional crossbench colleagues to make this a reality.

• Casual teachers at TAFE NSW will be converted into full-time staff, costing $83.1 million over four years.

• The government will launch a Future Women Jobs Academy program, aimed at increasing women’s participation in the workforce, at a cost of $5.8 million.

• Fee-free training for new apprentices and trainees will continue, at a cost of $16.3 million.

• Building Commission NSW, fully established in December, will be allocated a $35 million annual budget.

• The Office of the 24-Hour Commissioner will be given a $26.9 million boost to focus on regulatory reform and other initiatives to support the night-time economy, and Sound NSW will get $18.5 million to support live music artists and venues. This will support and grow the Brookvale Arts Precinct, which is serving as a template for other precincts across the state.

It is forecast the NSW budget deficit of $9.7 billion in 2023–24 will more than halve in the following 12 months, before gradually reducing to a deficit of $1.5 billion in 2027–28.

The Budget Papers highlight how leveraged our state’s finances are to the property market. The government now expects to collect more than $53 billion in transfer duty on property sales between now and June 2028. However, state net debt, negligible before the pandemic, will continue to rise. It is now close to $100 billion and is forecast to reach $140 billion by June 2028. The expanding debt profile caused the cancellation of the Beaches Link Tunnel.

Here are selection of key revenue raising measures:

• Private Insurers: When patients with private health insurance stay in public hospitals, they don’t always get billed correctly. The government is cracking down to ensure they pay the gazetted single room rate. It is expected to bring in $490 million over four years.

• Land tax: The tax-free land tax threshold will be frozen at the 2024 level of $1.075 million and no longer indexed annually in line with property price changes, estimated to bring in $1.5 billion over four years.

• Foreigners: Purchasers of NSW property from overseas are currently slugged foreign purchaser duty surcharge of 8 per cent, but that will increase to 9 per cent from 2025. In addition, the foreign owner land surcharge will also increase, expected to raise $188 million over the next four years. What is your opinion on foreign property ownership? A Federal issue, yes, but always keen to hear your opinion.

• Consultants: The NSW government will seek to slash the amount of money spent on consultants, with the premier’s department tasked with identifying skills shortages and gaps to bring jobs in-house to the public service.

There are many things that are good in the budget for us locals and the State in general, and many things that are not and could be better. For example, I am not happy that the cost of getting a Working With Children Check will jump from $80 to $105, as the government indexes it to inflation. Volunteers and essential workers should not be slugged with this additional cost. That's a simple one, but important. 

Please let me know if you have questions or wish me to follow up an issue re the Budget.

You can listen to Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s Budget speech here: HERE 

I’m excited that a number of community groups in the electorate will receive capital grants through the Community Building Partnership Grants Program to help their work. 

This year, Wakehurst has secured $299,646 in funding for 17 projects.

The worthy recipients are:

• Life Education NSW: For upgrades to Healthy Harold’s Mobile Learning Centre, Signage and Stairs, aiming to install new external signage and safety stairs in the entrance of the Life Education Mobile Learning Centre.

• The NSW RFSA on behalf of Beacon Hill Brigade: For upgrades to laundry facilities to better suit the team’s firefighting gear.

• NSW RFSA on behalf of Belrose Brigade: For essential renovation to bathrooms and carpeting.

• Forest Baseball Softball Club Inc: For the creation of 4 semi-permanent batting cages to facilitate batting practice for the Forest Baseball Softball Club. As well as for the repair of the existing cage netting.

• The Northern Beaches Council: For the electrification of the Brookvale Children’s Centre, aimed at replacing current appliances with energy efficient lighting and electric induction ranges.

• The Girl Guide Association of NSW, Forestville and Killarney branches: For the purchase and installation of bathroom vanities; including plumbing.

• Manly Warringah Football Association: For the upgrade of outdated and damaged bench seating and shelters at Cromer Park, in addition to the purchase of new portable goals for junior girls matches.

• Manly Warringah Women's Resource Centre: For upgrades to the Women and Children First refuge, in both environment and accessibility. 

• Manly Warringah District Baseball Association Inc: For netting repair within its baseball tunnel, and for extensions at Manly Baseball's home ground.

• Early Education (EarlyEd) Inc: For the supply and installation of two sheds in the playground of the Forestville Memorial Hall, in addition to shelving for books inside of the Forest room.

• Police Citizens Youth Clubs, NSW: For the refurbishment of two sport floors and a waste disposal at PCYC Northern Beaches.

• Lighthouse Community Cafe: For the purchase of materials to set up a Cafe area within the community centre, aimed at providing employment and income to the community.

• Streetwork Australia: For the purchase of a transport vehicle for the transport of vulnerable, at-risk, young people between mental health services, well-being, education and training services, and support providers. 

• The Collaroy Rugby Club: For an upgrade in club house appliances and facilities.

• MWP Community Care: For joint-funding with Pittwater, for a vehicle to be used for home maintenance for the elderly, enhancing accessibility and safety within the community.

Congratulations to these groups who can now use this money to provide better facilities and services!

Subscribe for updates about future capital grants through this program HERE