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Question and Answer Tracking Details

168 - Premier - STATE BUDGET

Farraway, Sam to the Minister for Climate Change, Minister for Energy, Minister for the Environment, and Minister for Heritage representing the Premier

I ask a supplementary question. Will the Minister elucidate that part of her answer in which she said the Premier is doing what sensible Premiers, I think she said, should be doing, and that is having dialogue with the Commonwealth to pursue New South Wales' interests? Has the Premier spoken to the Prime Minister to get our fair share of funding back?

Original Answer -

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE (Minister for Climate Change, Minister for Energy, Minister for the Environment, and Minister for Heritage) (11:55:55): I would have to take the detail of that on notice. Funnily enough, I do not know every phone call that the Premier makes. I know that he makes a lot of phone calls and I know that he is very busy. Again, the point that I make here is that the Premier is doing his job and doing it very effectively. We are working through those issues, whether it is housing, infrastructure, schools, the NDIS or education. We are working through all of those important agreements. We are also working in partnership with the Federal Government.

Again, I shout out to my colleague the Hon. Chris Bowen, who has worked very closely with New South Wales. As a result of that collaboration we are delivering another 2.2 gigawatts of renewable energy into New South Wales. We have additional funding that will support the faster rollout of the transition. We have important funding going into our manufacturers so that we can build solar panels and batteries here, and we can support sovereign security in the rollout of renewables. All of those things are incredibly important and are about partnership and working together. Do we sometimes fight? Yes, we do. And that is what one would expect when we stand up for New South Wales. We are determined in the short, medium and long term to ensure that New South Wales gets its fair share. Our Premier is leading the charge, as are all of the Ministers in their portfolios as we do this. The cheapest thing to do is just throw rocks, but we need to fix the problem, and that is what we are doing.

Additional Answer -

The Premier speaks to the Prime Minister regularly about a fair share of funding for New South Wales.

The NSW Government advocates for NSW interests through multiple channels, including National Cabinet and other forums, and will continue to fight for a fair share of Commonwealth funding for NSW residents.

The NSW Government's advocacy at the December 2023 National Cabinet meeting was central to the Commonwealth decision to extend the GST "no-worse-off" Guarantee until 2029-30. The Premier and NSW Government Minister continue to advocate for the interests of NSW in ongoing funding negotiations, including schools, health, disability services and infrastructure.


Question asked on 16 May 2024 (session 58-1)
Answer received on 6 June 2024