BY LACHLAN MALLOCH
SYDNEY — The NSW Labor government has once again received warm ruling-class approval for its annual budget, announced by treasurer Michael Egan on May 23.
A projected budget surplus of $659 million in 2000-2001, an earlier than expected cut in payroll tax and a cut in stamp duty for first home buyers have prompted unanimous pats on the back from media commentators and business leaders.
The only dissenting note was from the NSW Teachers Federation, whose president, Sue Simpson, pointed out that funding for education has received a mere 0.7% increase this year. The proportion of the budget devoted to schools has fallen for the fourth consecutive year.
Egan's large budget surplus, partly the result of big funding cuts announced last year, is funding job cuts by allowing the government to "buy out" its public servants with 1700 voluntary redundancies in the next year. The budget will also fund further corporatisation of the state's public transport system.
Despite Egan's optimism and the congratulatory media coverage, the streets of NSW are not paved with gold. This budget provides more evidence that the Carr government has no intention of solving — and no idea how to solve — the state's significant social problems.
For example, while the real estate market will be kept humming with the first home buyers' sweetener, the budget contains no initiatives to alleviate the growing waiting list for public housing, which now stands at 97,000. Nor does the budget offer any hope for the 40,000 homeless people forced to live on the streets in NSW every night.
Egan proudly announced that in this budget year, the government will pay off the last of its Olympics capital works expenses — and, he claims, not at the enormous social cost that critics of the Olympics have predicted.
But Egan's boasting sits uneasily with the lack of budget relief for the government agency in severest crisis, the Department of Community Services. DOCS overspent its allocated funds by $81 million last year in a desperate attempt to meet the needs of an increasing number of people crying out for welfare services.
While DOCS suffers, prisons and police don't. The budget allows for the employment of 315 new prison officers this year, on top of 518 recruited since January, and 200 extra cops. The government intends to imprison even more people in the next year: figures are projected to increase from 7300 to 7700.