Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to talk about the New South Wales budget and the effect it will have on my electorate of Farrer in western New South Wales. The New South Wales budget announced on Tuesday concentrates on the greater Sydney metropolitan area, to the detriment of rural New South Wales to the west of the Great Divide, and sadly that comes as no surprise to those of us who live in rural areas. The New South Wales Treasurer, Mr Eric Roozendaal, provided empty rhetoric in his budget speech and very little of substance for regional New South Wales. I thought that overall the budget lacked economic credibility and tied New South Wales to an enormous deficit which will see many more people joining the unemployment queue.

In his announcement, the Treasurer of New South Wales says that New South Wales is forecast to remain in deficit for the next two financial years but will return to the black with a modest surplus in 2011 before bouncing back up into a much larger surplus in 2012. So he waves away the state’s largest plunge into the red since 1992 and assumes that the state economy recovering from the global financial crisis in the ensuing few years will give rise to increased consumer spending and increased housing activity and bounce the state budget back into surplus. That is copying Mr Rudd’s heroic rhetoric on our own federal budget.

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