August 13, 2025 • 54 mins
In this episode, Daniel Mookhey shares his journey from his family’s history and early life to becoming a key figure in New South Wales politics. We discuss his path into the Labor Party, how he balanced political and union roles, and the thinking behind NSW’s latest budget and economic strategy. Daniel also unpacks significant investments in child protection and other budget highlights, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the priorities shaping the state’s future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Him, I boris and this is straight talk. Daniel Murky
here you going, mate, welcome, Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's such an honor.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
That's cool, It's very cool. I don't know any podcasts
have actually have gone around interviewing I certainly haven't state treasurers.
I've definitely interviewed federal treasurers, mostly in the liberal camp,
in fact, one hundred percent of the liberal camp. But
I hopefully I'll get no. I have had Jim on here.
(00:28):
Jim has been here. I should say Jim was there
during the election period and it was and it was
very good. It was very interesting. I think it's important
for asking your South Welshman and the rest of the
country for that matter, who listened to this, to know
a little bit about who's running the money part of
the business. Who's our CFO. Yeah, and that's you. That
is for me for me, Yeah, totally you. And you've
(00:49):
just launched a budget, which just talk about the budget shortly,
but let's do something you're probably not used to us.
Talk a little bit about who Daniel Murky is. So
your surname Murky, Mooky, Mooky, muki as in cookie mkias
in cookie. So you know, I've already you know, I
had him here two weeks ago, Chris Joy giving you
the biggest rap on the planet. So that's a lot
(01:12):
to live up to, Chris A very hard actually, So
you've got a lot to live a lot to live
up to. What's your what's the derivation of the name Muki.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
So, Muki is a Punjabi surname, and Punjabi is the
north of India and Pakistan is the province that sits
between the two. It's one of the two provinces that
sits between the two. And so my family historically on
my father's side are from what's now Pakistan. But when
India and Pakistan were partitioned, my family ended up obviously
(01:43):
in an Indian part.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So that was three forty seven, Yeah, that was forty seven. Yeah,
because India was a big country, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Was all subcontinent too.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, what we now call the subcontinent was at that
point called India and obviously under British rule. My father
was born in Lahore, which is the and he was
born four years prior to partition, and so when the
country was then split, he had to move across as
a refugee a bit before that, and same with my
(02:14):
mom's side. My mom's side was born and what's now
the Pakistani side of the Punjab and ended up in India,
but as well, so my muki literally translates to village spokesperson,
which for a politician is a good good surname to have.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
What was Was he a politician?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
He was not? He wasn't.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
He was a geologist. He came out here as a geologist.
But marquis he was the first of his of his
generation to get educated. And my grandfather was the third
of five brothers and only his father could only afford
to educate the first two, not third. So my grandfather
(02:56):
worked as a stenographer and he worked very hard. But
then my father, is the eldest of the children, got
to go to university, and then the rest of them
got to go.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
To university in India.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
In India, and so my father comes, he trains as
a geologist and he gets recruited to come work on
the Roxby downs Uranian project in the early seventies, and
he's one of the first people who benefits from the
final end of the Wide Australia policy in which Australia
(03:29):
started to welcome people more and more from the subcontinent
and the rest of the world. So he gets he
swaps populated North India in the seventies for out back
South Australia as a geologist, and then he makes his
way over to Sydney as well. And then you would
like this his first job. He ends up being a
computer program and then a real estate agent. Then he
(03:50):
gets into real estate.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So he gave geology away.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Mean, I guess from his perspective, rocks, I guess I
have some fascination. But he decided that he wanted to
move into a different career and he ends up being
a yeah effectively, I mean back then, bear in mind,
the mining industry wasn't as wealthy as perhaps it could
be it is this day. But he ends up becoming
a computer programmer and then he goes into a real
(04:16):
estate agent and then he opens up a small business.
But he passed away when I was very young. So
he passed away when I was five, Oh wow, And
so I didn't really get to know him that well.
But he's the reason why we end end up in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
My mother.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
They get married in seventy five and she comes out
here too.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
She's also from Indian.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, ye, she's from the North India as well. And
so I'm raised by my widowed mother. I'm the youngest
of three children and we grew up in the western
suburbs of Sydney.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
We're about in Marylands.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'm a Marylands boy.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I was born in Blacktown, grew up in Maryland's very
close to Paramatta and that's that's home for me as
a kid. And my family was there for forty years.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And did you go to the local state school? I did?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I did.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I went by performing you know whatever kids are you saying.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Well, I went to all of them actually, like I
got a I went to Hilltop Rode Public School, which
was a great public school, particularly at that age, particularly
after my father.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Died, very supportive public school as well.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then I went to a comprehensive high school in
the western suburbs, Model Farms High School for four years,
and then in new school.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
What is a comprehensive high school?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Meaning just your local school right like your local public
high school as well. And then I got into a
selective school in year eleven and twelve, and then I
went to Girroene Selective School for people in Sydney who
would know it's in Pendle Hill out in the west
as well.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And then when you were the youngest in your family,
you're the youngest childre, I'm the youngest of three brothers
and sisters. Brother and a sister. Yeah, like a perfect family. Brothers, Yeah,
I never managed it. I owned with four boys. And
in terms of your mum, did she remarry or was
just continue on as she's been? Yeah, and it must
(05:59):
have been a tough.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Well, she's an amazing woman. So she finds herself widowed
on the other side of the world with three young kids.
I was five, my sister was six, my brother was eleven.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And her parents, No, the rest of the family's back still.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, all there. My grandfather came out for a year.
My uncle, my father's uncle brother is in Sydney to
the only other family we have here as well. But no,
she was all by herself and she went back to work.
She went to work four weeks after my father passed
and spent her quest of her career as an accounts clerk.
(06:43):
She was trained as a child psychologist, but her qualifications
weren't recognized here, so she ends up as an account clerk.
She goes back to Taife, she retrains, she gets a
job she working in a manufacturing plant doing an account's
department in Auburn. Then gets another job at Borrel and
she's doing accounts for Borrow when she which is where
she stayed until she retired.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
His mom still light.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's an amazing and very
resilient woman.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
And I have to say, like, I mean, she put
through three kids through schooling.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We all got to go to university.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
My brother is an advanced programmer in quite a few
complex I T languages. My sister's a lawyer. I'm obviously
the treasurer of the state as well. We learned how
work ethic from our mum. And I got to say, Mark,
it's a very common story for immigrants. You learn the
ethic and you learn and what's great about this country
is is it people don't really care where you come from,
if they care about what you do and what you
(07:37):
can do and what you have to offer.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And how you go about it, yeah, and how you
go about it.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And so she taught me basically, you need to get educated,
but you're going to work hard.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And no one's going to give you anything. You've got
to work hard.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
But the other thing is a social obligation, right as well.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And I'll come back to the social obigation a second,
because I think how we get brought up, where we
get brought up, and how we get brought up have
a great impact on our sense of social obligation. What
would someone like you put down to some of your
strengths as a result of observing, not being told, but
observing how your mother lived her life and how your
(08:16):
mother raised you, and you know, observations that that maybe
inspired you or you felt as though were tales that
you must observe in terms of how you live your
life as a young man.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, I mean just watching your parents have to navigate that,
particularly from a perspective of a very young eyes. I mean,
I this happened my father passed up when I was five, right,
And how what I really learned from my mum just
watching the way in which she handled it and not
just stand but throughout resilience. Like what she taught me
(08:55):
really fundamentally was you need to be able to put
one foot in front of another. Really can be very
hard at times. Don't stop. Yeah, and that's the first part.
The other thing that, incidentally, that I really observed from
my mother is dignity. How important it is for you
to hold onto yours, but also how important it is
(09:16):
for you to respect everybody else's dignity too, regardless of
anyone's social station. You could be dealing with the richest
person in the world or the porest person in the world.
Everyone's a human and you've got to respect that dignity
and you've got to understand how crucial that is for
people as well as The other thing I've learned, and
the third thing I really learned from my mum is frankly,
the importance of family. Like we were very very very
(09:38):
tight knit family. We still are, but how important that
is for so many of us and therefore and the
community that sits around it, and I mean lots of
immigrant communities, particularly when I was growing up there weren't
that many people from India in Australia. Very different now,
but just everyone was there for everybody else. And that
importance of community and your obligations to each other really
(10:01):
is the other lesson I picked up from it.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And does that somehow bleed into how you approach your politics.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeap, that is the I mean, where do you get
your values and where do you get your principles? And
the good politicians know the answer to that question. And
where do I get my values and where do I
get my principles? I get it from my experiences and
my experiences where that you know the importance of people
being able to like to care for each other. It's
(10:30):
a fundamental part of how I think I have to
approach my job as well. But the point I was
baking about the dignity of people. You deal with lots
of different people in politics, but you have to respect
where everyone's coming from and treat everybody with respect when
you agree with them and when you discribe them.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
So I've had people sort of come back to me
and say, this guy's actually liberal, is not actually a
labor party. And that's quite interesting because whilst on one hand,
you have to respect and be, in your case a
(11:05):
little bit even responsible for people's dignity as a or
of the state and as a senior leader in the
party that runs the state and has done for a
while now and probably will do for quite a while
in the future. You probably know that I am a
big Christmians fan so and he says high and I
say high back. But also you can make a decision
(11:26):
as to which stream of that dignity and awareness and
social impact that you're going to have, which stream of
that in relation to the Labor Party that you sit.
So maybe you could explain perhaps the difference between to
(11:47):
our listeners and most we don't know this, but the
nuances within the Labor Party, Like there is a Libor
party by the way, there's some of the left, some
of the rights on the middle, Labor parties on the left,
some of the rights in the middle. Where does Daniel
Murky sit in relation to that?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean, look, I've always been I don't want.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
To be too rigid. I'm sorry about if.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
It's a great question.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Because you probably obviously it seems to me like as
someone come from your background, you respect enterprise, but at
the same time you want to look after those people
who need to look after.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, I guess the way I would describe it is
the type of I'm from the part of the Labor Party,
and I've always been attracted to the Labor Party in general.
But the part of the Labor Party that I obviously
am part of is the part that I guess the
poor Heating, Bob Hawk, Bob Carr, Chris Mints part of
the Labor Party, which is you do respect enterprise, and
(12:38):
you respect enterprise because it is also what provides people
with labor and therefore wages, and therefore gives them the
economic power to make decisions for themselves and for me,
How did I get exposed to that? Again, it goes
back to the product of my own childhood. So when
I was growing up, Bob Hawk and Porkeating were obviously
in charge of the country at the time. And but
(13:00):
I remember so vividly that when particularly I started to
turn about eight nine is when Bob Hawk and pork Eating.
Bob Hawk's last election put back to get ready for
Porkting's first is when I start to pay a bit
more attention to what's going on.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Early nineties.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, and that's but that's the same time my family's
going through a lot of hardship. The reason we got
through it was because there was an excellent public school.
And the reason why we got through it was because
my mum could go to Taife and equally she got
a with us pension that Bob Hawk brought in and
she got access to superannuation, and I remember quite vividly
(13:41):
in nineteen ninety in the recession we had to have
when there were redundancies going around. She held on to
her job because the union stepped in to make sure
that she could. And that's how I learn my ethoss
too as well. But what I the lesson I drew
out of that was that each of us need to
the tools to succeed, and everyone, not everybody, gets access
(14:02):
to that by birth every And what's great about this
don't most don't right, And what's great about this country
is we've built a way which again you could be
spring boarded up, but also if something goes wrong, there's
the same thing that to catch you on the way down.
And that's the sort of part of the Labor Party
that I've always been most attracted to. And for me,
my attitude has always been that the principles are very strong,
(14:24):
how you apply them has to change. And I'm of
the view that what works best for people is when
ye labor and frankly enterprise working partnership to the extent
to which they can, and everyone gets to share.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
In the prosperity.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
But also when things go wrong, everybody shares the risk, yeahs.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And that's sort of like a little bit like the
mandate of the Reserve Bank. You know, it's about maintaining
the prosperity and welfare of all Australians, which is that
the words of their mandate. And you know, welfare is
just as important as prosperity. You don't want too much
prosperity as the cost of welfare. You' don't too much
welfare cost of prosperity as as fine.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It comes out of hard work.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And I'm from the part of the I guess what
brings me to the labor side of politics is that
I think people should be rewarded for hard work. Some
of the Liberal Party, don't get me wrong, we just
have different ideas as to how you do that. And
from my perspective though, the work ethic is so crucial,
and I just think also work gives people dignity, work
keeps people identity. I think it's so important and I
(15:22):
think it's why I'm from that part of the Labor
Party that says, yep, if you work hard, you should
get ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
So well, I've always had a view on work ethic,
not always I've had a more mature view on work
ethic of maybe the last twenty years competit what I
was when I was a kid, when I was a
young man. When I was a young man, I took
work ethic to mean the heart of the harder you work,
the greater reward. But as i've some time later, maybe
(15:49):
o the last twenty years, I've realized that my work here,
I think is driven by the fact that I'm blessed
that I can work, and then therefore, because I have
their blessing, I should use it. And what I don't
like is where I get sort of impeded, something impedes
my ability to use the thing that I've been I've
been blessed with them. What I mean by I can work,
I'm physically okay, able to get up early morning and
(16:09):
do my reading and do whatever else I do. I
was lucky enough to go through a university system which
I went through in those days was free, and in
fact I got given money to go to university because
you know, I've got some scholarships and things like that.
But those things don't exist anymore, and I'm a big
believe in those things. But I also think I owe
my country for doing that for me. And I grew
(16:31):
up in the West Suburbs, not quite as far out
as you, but I was punchbowlb Punchball. I grew up Punchball.
I left there when I was seventeen, moved over these
suburbs are to go to UNI. Can I ask you
when you you obviously went to Universe, I go back
to your university days. When you were at university, were
you thinking and what did you do at university? And
(16:52):
by the way, when you whatever it is you were doing,
what were you thinking about Australian's welfare during that period?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, I got plutus, so I was quite young. I
mean when Bob Pocketting lost, I started to pay a
lot more attention to politics because I know, yeah, you
start to notice the nation's changing and then so I
spent a lot of time. Then I just started watching
the news and starting reading the newspapers and really got
into a lot of the public debate that was happening
(17:19):
at the time. I of course was railing against John
Howard every day. The irony, of course, Mark is at teenage,
Daniel Walkie hated John Howard and Peter Costello. Forty three
year old Daniel Walkie goes actually I disagree with a
lot of what they said and what they believed, but
I respect their professionalis. I respect the way in which
they approached the office. So yeah, that's how so my
(17:41):
appetite for public debate was kind of wedded in that
period of time. So when I went to university, I
wanted to do two things. So I wanted to do economics.
I wanted to do law, and so I did undergraduate,
I spent my time looking at economics.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
For what it's worth, I ended up.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Immersing myself in the final parts of Japanese monetary policy, and.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Wasn't all that good.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well actually at the time it wasn't, but all the
work that effectively then Ben Benaki unleashes on the world
in twenty two thousand and eight, quantity of easy all
pioneered by the back of Japan nineteen eight to two
thousand and two. That's what I ended up spending a
lot of time reading about.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And then so I did.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Laurel I did economics, and then the university uts utes
and then so.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
That must have just become a UNI at that stage because.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
It was was a university. It became a university in
eighty six. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, when when John Dawkins
converted them from John Dawkins the Polytechnical Institute University.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, effectively. Well, by the way, universities as Wales, I
was one of the first students to do Niverse to
be a university student because it was a tech. So
I started them in seventy three. Yeah, well, and it
was a tech also it became a university and by
the way, great places to be when they became universities. Yes, yeah,
because they actually were really enthusiastic about their students. Ambitious, innovative, unbelievable,
(19:03):
innovative and ambitious was fantastic. So you got you went
through that process that used it.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
And then when I finished, I did a master's just
for fun in defense studies. And so whilst I was
working as a lawyer at a trade union, I just
did masters for defense studies because I was very interested
in strategy.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
That's that's no wonder Chris Joy loves you because that's
that's his defense policy and strategy is something that he's
absolutely besided with all but he's an economist, but he
loves that.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, if you get if you kind of look at
strategy or defense and you look at economics, you start
to see how the two meld.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
It's a really good good background to have, and sort
of I think from my perspective, I do think it
gives you a lot more insight into how sort of
particularly global markets are interacting.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Out of state, especially at the moment, especially right now,
right like right now, it's critical. I just want to
go did the Labor Party? Will you a member Labor Party?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Younger?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah? Yeah, so you were a member a party during
that period.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
My mum wouldn't let me join until I was eighteen,
but when she did join, I signed up and I
remember I went to my first young labor event. I
think the third person I met is now the Premier
of New South Wales.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Oh really yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
We were all teenage young labour rights and so Chrismins
was there, as was a lot of now the senior
cabinet as well, the deputy Premier, and I r saw
it was a very similar age and so she joined
up as well.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
We started in the same year.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
How is she, by the way, she's getting better. Yeah, yeah,
but she's obviously going through a tough time right now.
But she's a real trooper.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I wish are my best done. So when someone comes
to you and says, what does someone come to you
and say, identify you as a smart young lawyer or
an economist, and you know, one of the better students
at the uts, and say, we better get this kid
into our end of our gang. You join. We were eighting.
But like, did someone sort of earmark you or yeah
(21:00):
you the other way?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Well, I certainly got him.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I threw myself into it, into the Labor Party and
the labor movement. But to be frank, back then I
was far more interested in sort of the industrial relations
side of the labor movement.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
As a lawyer though.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, well as a lawyer, yeah, I mean Bill Keltv
a C. T.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Daddy A kind of meant they had a real interest
in labor economics and sort of how people get treated
at work.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
One of the emperors of the Labor Party. Yes, and Bill,
by the way railing, and I should say this to Jim.
Bill is railing about what you're trying to do to superinnuation. Mate,
listen to Bill.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
But anyway, so I got in, and then yeah I did.
Actually I had the opportunity just to generally as being
a bit of a Labor Party activist and a movement
activists now Senator Tony Sheldon, he was the head of
the Truckers Union back then, and so he took a
punt on me and he hired me to work as
his summer intern. And when he was in charge of
the transport workers Union, and I ended up at the
(21:52):
airport talking to taxi drivers, food caterers, and then garbage
workers and then concrete cards and small business please or not,
they have a lot of small businesses in the transport
owner drivers and a lot of them are in the union.
And so it was a great education. And so he
took a punt on me.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
And you apply for it or he reached out.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I applied for it, but I knew him, and so
I knew him, and also I have some friends who
also he was very good at mentoring a lot of
young people. And so a lot of people, believe it
or not, you will see that have quite who've gone
up to quite a lot of heights in the Labor Party,
in the Labor movement, will trace their lineage to sort
of I guess being mentored by Tony and the TWU
(22:35):
and they took a punt on me.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
What you learn from those experiences. So you've got your
childhood experience with your mum and watching how hard work
sort of pays off, and it's nearly a non negotiable.
And then you go off into the university, you do
a economics law degree, you graduate, you're part of the
labor movement, you get luckily enough to get mentored by somebody,
(22:58):
and you get an expersions. How does that form or
refine your values and principles relative to being a politician.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Well, actually two things.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
When you kind of I mean, people love unions, they
hate unions like people don't tend not to have an
opinion in the middle. And I'll leave it to others
to judge. But for me personally, what I learned just
by a being there and b watching how Tony and
a lot of the leadership they were handling it was
just how the stakes really matter for people. And so
(23:33):
when you are asking a person who's a small business
who has mortgaged their house.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Might have a truck to buy a truck, yep.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
And if something goes wrong with their business, they lose
the truck, they lose their job, and they lose their
house and they have to explain it to their family.
You start to learn that you have a lot a
duty of care, and so you learn very quickly that
they're not hiring you and they're not paying their membership
fees expecting you to be reckless. And what you learn
(24:05):
is very quickly is that when you are having to
negotiate pay and negotiate conditions and yes, often a lot
of conflict, that you are leading people, and the responsibility
of leadership is also paired with the need to be caring.
But I was a disciplined and another really simple way
(24:27):
of putting it is that if you're asking someone to
go on strike, if you're asking someone to stop being
on strike, you need to know why are you asking
them to give up their pay and also what are
we fighting for? How are we going to get a resolution,
and how are we going to make sure that the
enterprise you're working with survives. Really one of the people
(24:49):
one of the best pieces of advice I got there
from a mentor at the union was anyone can get
their people to go on strike, it's getting them to
go back in.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
It's the hard bit.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And when you're telling someone that they're not going we
get paid, you better tell them why, and you better
have a strategy and you better better know how you're
going to get them what they want, and you're just
going to make sure that you're not risking their job
in the long term. That's the sort of ethos you learn,
and that's what I learn. And I want to say
the other thing is when you're having to stand up
at four in the morning at a kitchen at an
(25:20):
airline that produces food for airlines, you've got to treat
them with dignity. But I've got to tell you that
there's a no bullshet attitude out there.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Use your perspective, produce.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, yeah, And I tell you when you're talking to
gabos at four in the morning, five in the morning,
there's a no bullsheit attitude towards it. And when you're
talking to owner drivers at six pm at night have
come in for a meeting, who we are negotiating a
contract with some of the biggest firms that literally they
mortgage their house.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Everything's on the line.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
So that's what you mean by the steaks what's in it?
Ready steaks being what am I staking? What am I
potentially going to lose?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
And that ethos is something for a politician is important
because you have a public trust.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
As long as you've experienced it, and not everyone does.
But so you look at that, and obviously this year
and last year, this state has had a lot of
issues around railway unions and all that sort of stuff,
and do you And I've sent a lot of commentary
from you and often I and I'm glad you told
me this because often I'm thinking to myself, Daniel's only
(26:22):
looking at this from the point of view of what
the economy can afford, as opposed to I think probably
what you're going to now sad music. But I also
know what they're what they're trying to do. I understand
what's in it for them, why they're trying to improve
their position. Do you get like conflicted? And then when
Chris says, look, mate, we have to make a call
on this, you know, and which you did? You guys
(26:43):
made some really tough calls relative to the union's claims.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, But look, the other way of putting it, Mark
is is that you know, you need to know how
to fight for your beliefs, often against your friends as well.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I have great respect
for the training. Does it mean I agree with them
and everything. No, But also as a labor politician and
a labor treasurer who's been elected by the public, who
(27:09):
holds a position on public trust, I always look for
what's in the public interest has to come first, and
often you can find mutual interests with the people within
me negotiating. But that does mean, yeah, often you do
feel conflicted. But I'm comfortable with it because from my perspective,
people deserve a train and we.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Need people as in consumers.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Consumers, yeah, and that's what our job as a government
is to deliver their essential services. And that often does
mean yep, you've got to have some tough conversations with
your workforce, respectful conversations with your workforce, and you have
to be looking for a solution at all times. Don't
get me wrong, but yeah, often that does mean you
have to say no. And I'm comfortable with that.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Because because I've thought about I've heard you and listened
to and watched and thought about Chris as well, and
you know, especially when they're being in et cetera about
some of those conflicts, particularly during the Transport blue that
was happening six months ago whenever it was and went
off at maybe a year I used to think to myself,
(28:13):
how does someone like Daniel balance off with what the
state can afford? Do you have to sit down and think, well,
this could cause a cascade of claims amongst others, and
we as a government who have to pay these wages
relative to the services being provided to the consumers. Do
you sit down and say we just can't afford this.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
And when you say the unions, how do they respond?
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Well, often they disagree, yeah, and you can afford it.
Though afford it both. I mean, they will obviously make
both points, and that's their job. I get that that's
their job. Their job is to argue hard. But my
job is also to argue hard. And you often do
find yourself where you just can't agree, and that does
often lead to industrial action which you don't have to
(28:58):
be resolved.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
And a few times you went to the Fair Work
Commission and got rulings which I thought was good.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
But Mark, you can't duckt the hard calls.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
And the way the other way putting it is that
no one elects governments to make easy decisions like you
have to make her decisions. And if you expect to
be in government making simply easy calls. You want that,
that's just not tenable.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So from my.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Perspective, yep, you're quite right. Often I have to say
stay can't afford it. And particularly when we came to power,
we inherited a ten billion dollar deficit from the Liberal
Party and those who came before us, and a very
sharp rise in spending and a very large increase in debt.
And so from my perspective, the way through is just
to tell people the truth. We can't afford it, but
(29:42):
I should answer it. The point, from my perspective, the
reason why I was happy and comfortable with not having
to have these conversations is because what we were offering
was us a fair and we were It wasn't like
we were saying there's a wage free people pay card.
We weren't saying that we've been saying to people along.
In fact, we've been able to show up people that
we've delivered in New Southwest police officers the best pay
(30:03):
rise in a generation, once in a decade, pay rise
incidentally for by reform, by fixing a police insurance game
that was broken. So from my perspective, you could have
those conversations if you're offering people the truth and you're
offering them fairness and if they reject it, they reject it.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
That doesn't mean we have to agree.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So it's interesting that your position in relation to being
put into conflict is something you're quite comfortable with. And
you made the very good point, and it's a point
I wish all governments in Australia would adopt, is that
you will be put in conflict and you're not there
to please everybody, and you've got to do something which
is going to make someone unhappy. And that's a pretty
(30:48):
ballsy position to be prepared to take, to be honest
with you, and that's a pretty big cool to make.
Why is it that you guys do it? You and Minsen,
the rest of you, the rest of your team made
those calls, and perhaps you may not want even comment on,
but perhaps others find it less palatable to be able
to make those calls.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh, I mean, look, I think lots of people are
making very hard decisions right now. I mean, the nation
and the state's coming out of some pretty tough times
and there are hard decisions that need to be made.
And you can't please everybody, that's for sure. And everybody
approaches it from a very different perspective. I guess what
I would say, though, is that it's a credit to
Chris and the way he leads a government and the
mandate he got and the party got when we were
(31:31):
elected two years ago.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
We were elected to help solve the states.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Problems and particularly to make sure that people have good jobs,
they can afford to live in the city, they have
a roof over their head, and they've got great services
in their neighborhoods. That's a really cool why we were here,
and we've been pretty upfront that will be candid about
what goes well. We'll also talk about what needs to
(31:53):
be done better. And yet we weren't elected to deduct
the easy decision the hard decisions.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Were elected to make them.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
And so from my perspective, I can't really answer a
question other than to say that's the ethos that we
bring and it does mean Yet we are making some
pretty tough calls, like you know, but it's leading to
better results for people in New South Wales. I mean,
we were in a pretty tough fight from the first
year and we got here with the teachers, but we
managed to land that in a scenario which delivered teachers
(32:21):
are great pay rise. But why is that good for
the people in New South Wales Because today we have
nearly half the number of counceled and merged classes in
public schools and New South Wales which more kids are
getting more access to more teachers, we've got more kids
getting access to tutoring. So from my perspective, the way
the reason why we make the calls is because we
(32:42):
know it leads to better outcomes for the people of
New South Wales and people we were elected to serve.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And so there's no way to avoid it.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
If you want change, at times you have to disappoint people,
but you've got to tell people about why you're doing it.
You're going to be straight with what you're expecting to flow,
and then you've got to be accountable for the decisions
you make.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So because you've gone through teachers, nurses and transport, there
are the three big ones. Is there anything else?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, well, I mean look there's a lot.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Obviously police police weren't giving you trouble. I mean there
was no strike or whatever. Maybe it was, we didn't
know about it. But those three are the sort of
the standout ones. And I told you you held your
ground every time, and so did your So did your leader,
your premier, how's that relationship? I mean you explained us
how you first met, but how did that relationship come
(33:30):
about when you know, when the party was formed and
was running running for government, how did your relationship? Potentially
is the treasurer become a reality? Well, I mean with
the premier? Is that how worse to the premier point
the treasure how yes?
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, So I mean he's obviously as a leader
of the party and he allocates the jobs to everybody else,
so he's one who makes the call as to who
gets to do what. Obviously the deputy Premier gets a
pretty big say in choosing watch he wants to do.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Chris got elected leader of the Labor Party when the
Labor Party was in real trouble actually and needed to
was out of power for about ten years here in
New South Wales.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yea, and you had a lot of legacy crappiatity with
the Obedes said a drama.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, but he got elected as a frankly a new
generation like none of us were around at that point
in time, with all the legacy issues.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
With the bed and so he set up he's set
up a very good ethos.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Amongst the leadership team and the people who lead the
news and lost goverment's very collaborative, it's very.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Consensus driven.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I would call it modern.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, it's very modern.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
It doesn't younger people sort of running it.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
It's very very respectful of it.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
So from his perspective, like he set subviously the tone.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
But obviously it's a huge privilege to be a.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Treasurer of the state and be a treasurer in the
other government. I have to say, as treasurers are only
as effective as their premiers will let them be. And
I'm very fortunate that I have a very good relationship
with the premiere as well, and he is a very
collaborative leader to work with, which means that we can
make the tough decisions.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
We do it as a team.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So you were talking about, you know, the sort of
some of the tough decisions, sort of your tactical stuff.
You know, I'm dealing with the transport, I'm dealing with
this issue, dealing with that issue. There. The day to
day bushfires is got to be put out and that's
their hard they're hard calls every day, probably you know,
many times per day every day. But then we can
talk about the strategy stuff. One of the things I
wanted to talk to about today's your budget. You've just
(35:24):
leished your budget and there is there your strategy. That's
that's New South Wales economic strategy for the start of
the next twelve months. You've just released it. I saw
that you took a fairly what I would call call
economically pragmatic position. You've you're looking to build surpluses. Yep,
it's different to a lot of other governments.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, I on the prize here Mark as well. You
have to deal with a lot of tactical issues and
state politics. Issues are up every day, but you got
to keep your eyes on the prize, right, Why we here?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
What do we want to do?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And so when we will framing the budget, we're framing
the budget knowing that there's really three very important things
we have to do for the New Cell worlds's future. First,
make sure people get a home, and we are dealing
with the housing crisis. We have to make sure we
keep building more homes for people to live. We can't
duck the fact that we just haven't been building enough
homes here in New South Wales. We need to build,
We need to build, and we need to build, and
(36:16):
so we did a lot of our settings. We're designed
to make sure that we were intervening into the markets,
working with the private sector to really get more homes
built in New South Wales and to give the private
sector a lot of confidence to say yes to those
investment cases. Why is that important because go back to
the sort of what we started. If you happen to
be a family in a circumstance similar to mine annuals,
(36:37):
be it in Punchable or beat in Marylands, if you
don't get access to a good home, you don't get
anything else. And if you haven't got housing security, your
capacity to get to the education is diminished. To your
capacity to convert your work into wealth harder, very hard.
So we want to get more of that done. The
second thing we have to do is yet we have
to do a lot of fiscal repair. At a time
where interest rates have been high, inflation has been high.
(37:00):
We've been very conscious that if we simply pour more
fuel on the fire, who ends up paying it. It's
frankly people with mortgages. And so in my first budget,
in our second budget, we were pretty determined to get
our expense growth under control and to.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Show an expense government expense growth.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah, when I came to power and into this office
and the government came to power, should say that the
news tap world's expenses were growing at roughly twenty four
percent a year the previous year on average six point
four percent over the previous five years, not sustainable at
a time of high inflations. Had to come down, and
so we have actually been able to report that we've
(37:37):
brought that down to now about two point four percent.
The other thing I should just say is the debt.
The debt has to be stabilized and brought down, and
I'm really pleased that by the end of this financial
year that's just started, we're on track to have about
ten billion dollars lower debt than we would have had
it under our predecessors as well.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
And why is that important?
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Because everyone who's paying attention to markets right now knows
there a lot of a lot of uncertain and if
you happen to be in the bond market or exposed
to the bond market, which I know a lot of
your listeners we would pay a lot of attention to,
it's in a lot of state of flux, and so
us being able to show that we're the only state
that actually cut its forecast for issuance after the budgets.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I think it's really important.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
It was a big deal to by the way, I
probably it's the bilot of people, but that's a big call.
I mean, strategically for a labor party. It's not something
I would not ordinarily expect to happen. I actually thought
it was very brave, courageous, great call. How do you
look at that in relation to maybe what their rating
agencies are thinking?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, I'm thinking about where are we going as a
state and what do we need right? And so the
rating agencies have been clear from the moment I became
treasurer the credit rating is at a real risk.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Has been for a privilege.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, it's a pretty much ours is a privilege, yeah, efetually.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, So we've been conscious of it for a while.
The rating agencies are going to have to make their
own minds up. But put it this way, after the
budget we gave just last week, our metrics are better.
Debt is stable as a percentage of GSP, and the
only state that's showing it coming down as well, it's
a lot lower than otherwise thinks. We are literally going
(39:15):
to the bond market and asking for less money today
than we people were expecting us two weeks ago. So
from my perspective, I think it's a really important signal
to send that here in New South Wales the finances
are stabilizing. Is the job done No, obviously it's not
done there. But I'm really pleased that we are now
able to show that there is a pathway back to surplus.
A lot needs to go right. I'm very cautious about it.
(39:37):
I'm not doing any vitory laps whatsoever. I mean, I
remember when I gave my first budget we had a
pathway to surplus. Then the very next year in New
South Wales got hit with a massive reduction in GST income.
We had twelve billion dollars taken off us. This year
we've been able to show people that we're getting on
with our job, but we are stabilizing the state's finances.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
As well with twelve billion less.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Yeah, we lost twelve billion in revenue last year in
GS the biggest hit in the New Civil's revenue in decades.
The last year's Comonwealth Grant's decision on the GST break
up between the states, and every year the way I
should just explain it is that the common Wealth Grants Commission,
independent body sits federally tells every state what you're going
to get. We lost a lot of money. We lost
(40:18):
more money from their decision than we did during COVID,
so a big hit to the finances, which obviously is
my job to manage as a treasurer.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Do you think you did You get a chance to arguement.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Ah, no, you make.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Your case, but you know it's pretty opaque. Put it
this way, I can not explain to your listeners.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
How they carve it up.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Couldn't do it. So it's such a weird way in
which to allocate.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's about contribution that I don't understand it like it
is about it can't be about numbers of people.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Well, it's a.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Bit about numbers of people, and it's a bit about
how much they think it costs to deliver services in
your state.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
But if you're doing a really good job delivering services
in the state, or is it their services they deliver
in your state, No.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
It's ours.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
So if you're doing a really good job at it.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
You often can lose money.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Says counterintuitive to me. Be getting rewarded for.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Well there you go. If you blow and behold, if
they kind of think that perhaps that you're more I
guess one view efficient the conclusion is less you need less. Yeah,
so it's it's a weird system, right, And Mark, I'm
not being cute and saying this. We could be here
for the next two hours. I'm still not sure I'd
be able to shed much light in how it works,
(41:22):
other than to say it's widely unpredictable. And it's certainly
from my perspective, if you can't understand it, people want
support it. And I think we can do better as
a nation in fixing it.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
So last year you you twelve down, billin down in
terms of allocation from the GST.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
That's a big part of every state's budget.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, and that right, And so as a result of that,
for this budget, you had to go about and make
sure you cut the cloth to suit yep, and start
to reduce costs. We have to we have to make
an assumption that you're not going to get you're not
going to stock going to increase for some.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Well, basically we have to keep cost gross down. We
haven't been sort of having to because a lot of
the work we did in our first budget we were
able to absorb the impact. But it just means we've
had to keep ourselves in a very disciplined posture and
it means that you have to say no to a
lot of things as treasule, a lot of things have
a lot of merit. But again, Mark, you know, is
that every business in every house that has to do
the same thing. Yeah, it's not like you do it
(42:15):
all the time. You have to do it all the time,
and so for governments as well, it's important. Then other
thing I sort to say is why I think it's
important for the economy really large, is that we need
to get more private sector growth happening. This is a
conversation the nation's happening. I agree very much with the
federal government when they say that the next era of
Australian growth is going to need to be led by
(42:35):
the private sector. But for us, what that means is
by showing that we're stabilizing our finances here in New
South Wales, it's giving the private sector a lot more
confidence to go. Okay, we want to invest more in
the state and the state's up in for business.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
So one of the initiatives, now, forgive me if I
got this not quite right. But one of the initiatives
that you were talking about is in relation to probably
the wrong word to use, but sort of underwriting developed.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Yeah, pre self finance guarantee, because.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
That's an important one. So it's not only about house
avoidability or housing supplies, I should say, but correct me
if I'm wrong. Is that because apart from you know,
first time grant and all those sorts of things, the
end of the day, housing supplies not from the governments,
from developers and you've got to make it such that
they can borrow money and if they can't, and usually
(43:25):
they borrow money from banks, sometimes from private lenders, but
usually from banks. And the banks have a fairly strict
regime which that they're made to have through the regulator,
that they have pre sales and they'll only lend up
to a certain percentage of the tital development costs, et cetera.
Was that something you guys sat around and unpicked and
worked out. This is something we have to in New
South Wales. Aggresses so major you can you just explain
(43:48):
what it is you did, You've.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Launched, So it is sort of it's what I would
describe as a canny use of the government's balance sheet. Careful,
very very care full use but can he use? And
it comes from this you sit in talking to people
about what's stopping them from getting going on construction.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So the only land out of camp and where it is,
got a couple of thousand put ten thousand hours on there,
but they're not doing it. They're just land being it.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah. Well, alternatively, actually they've got approval to build.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Some apartments near railway stations in neighborhoods people love to
live in, and they need to go and convince their lenders, banks, finances,
private credit that there's enough bias. Often what they're being
told is you need to have eighty percent of the
STOCKSLT PRESLT committed. Yep, you need to show us that
(44:43):
you have eighty percent sold. What we've said is, well, actually,
if you're building at that level, those sort of mid
tier apartments in these neighborhoods, which everyone selling me are
the most challenging projects to get feasibility approve.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
On a billion dollar development.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Billion dollar can be up to a billion, but equally
we're talking about, for example, the six to nine, three
to nine story right apartments, particularly that mid tier in
areas that are already built up.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And in zones where you would like to see more
development a relative to say transport.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Yeah, where we've already got transport, we've got schools, where
we've got water, where you're ready to go, like the
neighborhoods can absorb a bit more housing. And also there's
lots of people who are renting in these suburbs who
are looking for a place to buy, and so it's
the first step on the housing. Latter is the other
way putting it. But just by talking to those people
who are doing that, all of them were saying, well,
(45:39):
these are the most challenging projects to get we get
to fifty percent sales, but the bank's one eighty.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
If you step.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
In and just go, you'll buy some of them, like
you're prepared to buy. You the government, you the government
will buy some of them as.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
A buyer of last results, so to speak, and not
one of last result, but underwrite the buy under the buying.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Right you just that gap, just that gap. That's an
enough for us to then unlock the money and get
the construction going.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
That's enough to convince the banks or the lenders that
were in fact the banks, the lenders going to say well, wow,
that's a government, So triple a rate a government. That's
not bad. That's a good enhancement.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
And for the people in New South Wales, right, what's
the worst outcome we get we get a.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
House, we by you, the state government have a house.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
We end up getting the house.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Yeah, and we get the house and we can then
use it for social housing or affordable housing, or we'll
sell it ourselves in the event that happens. So it's
a pretty canny use of the sort of state's balance sheet.
We say, all right, well, we're prepared to go as
a buyer and underwrite the buy and that gap. That
means we can bring forward roughly fifteen thousand additional private
(46:42):
sector dwellings, which is not a silver bullet, But there's
no one policy that's a silver bullet. It's how they
all work with each other. And what that means is that, yeah,
we are building more homes for people to buy and
for people to rand at relatively low risk for the
state of New South Wales, which is what we need
to do if we're serious about getting the house in crisis.
But you brought upon is right, mark the housing crisis
(47:03):
will be solved by the private sector building more homes
only way, only way, and we were doing our bit,
and when it comes to social housing, we're doing our
bit when it comes to essential worker housing. But ultimately
we need all of it above, win all of the
above solution. And the way I put it is, we
need more homes for social housing, we need more affordable homes,
(47:23):
we need more homes for our central workers, we need
more homes for people to buy and rant, we need
more humps and so from our perspective, the Premier has
made it very clear as a government, this is a
core mission to us and so we're doing what we
need to do to make sure that people have a
roof over their head.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
I have heard some people say criticize all government's been
in particular the new Southwalest government as well, because your
contribution towards the one point two million houses over the
next now four years, which is what was the federal
government sort of discussion about a year or so ago.
You won't make it. Probably you won't make it. But
the point I think the point being here is from
your point of view, at least in relation to this budget,
(47:58):
is this is a start, and you can't you just
spa say I know we're not going to make it,
probably won't make it, but that doesn't mean I can't
do anything. I'm going to try and make it. So
where just just if you could just explain to me
where does that it's called a credit enhancement? What you
what you've actually done if you enhanced the credit of
the builder relative to the lender, for the lender to
(48:20):
grant the builder developer the money to do the development.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I've done.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Think I've ever seen a government put their balance sheet
up effectively by underwriting that enhancement, which is pretty typically
what lenders want to see relative to a developer. How
did how do I mean, where does that idea come from?
Like do you do you talk to credit providers? Do
(48:46):
you go out and talk to well known builders and
say mate, what is it that you need to lay
you get this project up and running?
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Yes, we do, and that's what good company will work.
They listen and credit to the Planning Minister paulk here
in New South Wales and his department that's been at
the front lines of all these conversations. And in fact,
how did this policy come about? We were having these
conversations two years ago with what do we need to
do what's stopping people? And Paul last budget we're a
(49:17):
very quiet announcement we did the two of us did
on a Saturday morning in which we said, all right,
we'll have put it a little bit of money to
look at this, and not big amounts of money, but
enough money for us to then start getting in do
the proper policy work that's designed and then Paul and
his team have driven it since. And as Treasurer, of course,
when it comes to the use of the balance sheet,
the Treasurer has to be comfortable and we had a
(49:37):
real look at it. We got in there how to
do a lot of due diligence and we spoke to
a lot of people industries, spoke a people in the banks,
what stops you? And yes, because we were doing that listening,
we were able to come up with this nation leading
scheme which we will hopefully bring forward about fifteen thousand
dollars in the next sort of few years. So from
our perspective, that's what governments need to do. Like and
(50:00):
frankly here in New South Wales, we're unabashed about the
fact that we will listen to anyone who's got a
good idea from a business be a union, be an
industry group. If we're signing, if we want to solve
the housing crisis, we're all going to have to work
with each other.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Yeah, And I just think is a great example for
other states to consider. And I guess that's what leadership
is all about. You know, taking a risk. You are
taking a risk, but based on you know, as you said,
due diligence and mean you at the end of the day,
the worst comes to words, you end up owning house.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
But Mark, the other point is this, doing nothing is risky. Yeah,
to one hundred percent, Like doing nothing's lost locking out
an entire generation from the prospect of ever owning a home,
and that doing nothing is to risk us losing our
egoitarian ethos, which says, no matter where you come from,
you can get ahead, and you can own and you
can build your wealth here in this state and in
this country. So from my perspective, the status quo is risky.
(50:53):
And yep, you've got to be very careful when you're
using the state's balance sheet, don't get me wrong. But
from my perspective, we're trying to solve a challenge, and
a pretty immense challenge of it, and we need to
make some progress just in order to make sure that
we can hold on to what we have here. So
from our perspective, we should be listening and yep, we
should be working in partnership with everybody, workers, unions, business
(51:14):
industry to get more homes billed for people.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
And I just think for me, it's one of the
best in issues I've seen for a government to do,
the state or federal for a long long time being
prepared to step in and use their balance sheet in
order to get a really important outcome that is housing,
more housing, more housinges the Treasurer just to kick finalize
this thing off, finalize our conversation off. What are the
(51:39):
some of the highlights that you'd like to point out
in relation to your latest budget.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
I mean, there's one thing that I'm really proud of
that we did in this budget, which is we delivered
the biggest increase to child protection in New South Welsest history.
And these are for kids who it's not safe for
them to stay at home. These are for kids who
need to be looked after by the government and foster
cares and a lot of our charities in non for profits,
we in this budget made a one point two billion
(52:05):
dollar investment in better child protection and equally delivered the
first increase in the foster carries allowance in real terms
for twenty years and for those people who are caring
for kids who are not their own, really important that
they can afford to do so. So I'm really pleased
about that, and why I'm most really proud about that
(52:26):
is because the way in which we paid for it
wasn't just simply to throw more money at it. We
actually fixed a lot of the problems that we were
dealing with in child protection that we started this working
year one Mark.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
I mean, I guess when we became.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
When we got sworn in, when Chris became premiy, I
became a treasurer, and Kate Washington became the minister responsible
for this. Here in New South Wales, we had one
hundred kids on average a night sleeping in motels.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
And I can't believe that I got a shocked bye.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Yeah, one hundred odd kids every night for the two
years of really hard work and reform behind the means
meant that though there's as of April this year, no
kids were sleeping from hotels, And just to put that
in really numeric terms, those are kids sleeping in that
type of arrangement per year cost roughly a million dollars.
(53:14):
A million dollars because we had so many of them.
This was not a good use of public money and
it wasn't learning into a good outcome for the kids.
But because we've been fixing that for two years, we
now have that money to then re employ into a
much better system. And I'm really proud of that because
that's a lot of hard work that our government has done,
and again that Minister has led us and the Premiere
and as a team have delivered. But that's the type
(53:36):
of stuff that reminds you about why you're.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
In this job and anything which you wanted to throw
out that highlight in raace to your budget.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
The other thing I'm really proud of as well with
this particular budget is again we are showing people that
we are making investments in the things that we care
about at the same time we're stabilizing the finances treasure.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
I know you've got some you've got a lunch you
go to go and attend and I'm getting wound up
by my crew over this idea, But I really appreciate
you coming in there and uh. And Chris, everything you
said about him, he's lived up to it.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Mate. That's a great chat. Thanks mate,
Him, I boris and this is straight talk. Daniel Murky
here you going, mate, welcome, Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's such an honor.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
That's cool, It's very cool. I don't know any podcasts
have actually have gone around interviewing I certainly haven't state treasurers.
I've definitely interviewed federal treasurers, mostly in the liberal camp,
in fact, one hundred percent of the liberal camp. But
I hopefully I'll get no. I have had Jim on here.
(00:28):
Jim has been here. I should say Jim was there
during the election period and it was and it was
very good. It was very interesting. I think it's important
for asking your South Welshman and the rest of the
country for that matter, who listened to this, to know
a little bit about who's running the money part of
the business. Who's our CFO. Yeah, and that's you. That
is for me for me, Yeah, totally you. And you've
(00:49):
just launched a budget, which just talk about the budget shortly,
but let's do something you're probably not used to us.
Talk a little bit about who Daniel Murky is. So
your surname Murky, Mooky, Mooky, muki as in cookie mkias
in cookie. So you know, I've already you know, I
had him here two weeks ago, Chris Joy giving you
the biggest rap on the planet. So that's a lot
(01:12):
to live up to, Chris A very hard actually, So
you've got a lot to live a lot to live
up to. What's your what's the derivation of the name Muki.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
So, Muki is a Punjabi surname, and Punjabi is the
north of India and Pakistan is the province that sits
between the two. It's one of the two provinces that
sits between the two. And so my family historically on
my father's side are from what's now Pakistan. But when
India and Pakistan were partitioned, my family ended up obviously
(01:43):
in an Indian part.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So that was three forty seven, Yeah, that was forty seven. Yeah,
because India was a big country, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Was all subcontinent too.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, what we now call the subcontinent was at that
point called India and obviously under British rule. My father
was born in Lahore, which is the and he was
born four years prior to partition, and so when the
country was then split, he had to move across as
a refugee a bit before that, and same with my
(02:14):
mom's side. My mom's side was born and what's now
the Pakistani side of the Punjab and ended up in India,
but as well, so my muki literally translates to village spokesperson,
which for a politician is a good good surname to have.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
What was Was he a politician?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
He was not? He wasn't.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
He was a geologist. He came out here as a geologist.
But marquis he was the first of his of his
generation to get educated. And my grandfather was the third
of five brothers and only his father could only afford
to educate the first two, not third. So my grandfather
(02:56):
worked as a stenographer and he worked very hard. But
then my father, is the eldest of the children, got
to go to university, and then the rest of them
got to go.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
To university in India.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
In India, and so my father comes, he trains as
a geologist and he gets recruited to come work on
the Roxby downs Uranian project in the early seventies, and
he's one of the first people who benefits from the
final end of the Wide Australia policy in which Australia
(03:29):
started to welcome people more and more from the subcontinent
and the rest of the world. So he gets he
swaps populated North India in the seventies for out back
South Australia as a geologist, and then he makes his
way over to Sydney as well. And then you would
like this his first job. He ends up being a
computer program and then a real estate agent. Then he
(03:50):
gets into real estate.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So he gave geology away.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Mean, I guess from his perspective, rocks, I guess I
have some fascination. But he decided that he wanted to
move into a different career and he ends up being
a yeah effectively, I mean back then, bear in mind,
the mining industry wasn't as wealthy as perhaps it could
be it is this day. But he ends up becoming
a computer programmer and then he goes into a real
(04:16):
estate agent and then he opens up a small business.
But he passed away when I was very young. So
he passed away when I was five, Oh wow, And
so I didn't really get to know him that well.
But he's the reason why we end end up in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
My mother.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
They get married in seventy five and she comes out
here too.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
She's also from Indian.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, ye, she's from the North India as well. And
so I'm raised by my widowed mother. I'm the youngest
of three children and we grew up in the western
suburbs of Sydney.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
We're about in Marylands.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'm a Marylands boy.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I was born in Blacktown, grew up in Maryland's very
close to Paramatta and that's that's home for me as
a kid. And my family was there for forty years.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And did you go to the local state school? I did?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I did.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I went by performing you know whatever kids are you saying.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Well, I went to all of them actually, like I
got a I went to Hilltop Rode Public School, which
was a great public school, particularly at that age, particularly
after my father.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Died, very supportive public school as well.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then I went to a comprehensive high school in
the western suburbs, Model Farms High School for four years,
and then in new school.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
What is a comprehensive high school?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Meaning just your local school right like your local public
high school as well. And then I got into a
selective school in year eleven and twelve, and then I
went to Girroene Selective School for people in Sydney who
would know it's in Pendle Hill out in the west
as well.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And then when you were the youngest in your family,
you're the youngest childre, I'm the youngest of three brothers
and sisters. Brother and a sister. Yeah, like a perfect family. Brothers, Yeah,
I never managed it. I owned with four boys. And
in terms of your mum, did she remarry or was
just continue on as she's been? Yeah, and it must
(05:59):
have been a tough.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Well, she's an amazing woman. So she finds herself widowed
on the other side of the world with three young kids.
I was five, my sister was six, my brother was eleven.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And her parents, No, the rest of the family's back still.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, all there. My grandfather came out for a year.
My uncle, my father's uncle brother is in Sydney to
the only other family we have here as well. But no,
she was all by herself and she went back to work.
She went to work four weeks after my father passed
and spent her quest of her career as an accounts clerk.
(06:43):
She was trained as a child psychologist, but her qualifications
weren't recognized here, so she ends up as an account clerk.
She goes back to Taife, she retrains, she gets a
job she working in a manufacturing plant doing an account's
department in Auburn. Then gets another job at Borrel and
she's doing accounts for Borrow when she which is where
she stayed until she retired.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
His mom still light.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's an amazing and very
resilient woman.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
And I have to say, like, I mean, she put
through three kids through schooling.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We all got to go to university.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
My brother is an advanced programmer in quite a few
complex I T languages. My sister's a lawyer. I'm obviously
the treasurer of the state as well. We learned how
work ethic from our mum. And I got to say, Mark,
it's a very common story for immigrants. You learn the
ethic and you learn and what's great about this country
is is it people don't really care where you come from,
if they care about what you do and what you
(07:37):
can do and what you have to offer.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And how you go about it, yeah, and how you
go about it.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And so she taught me basically, you need to get educated,
but you're going to work hard.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And no one's going to give you anything. You've got
to work hard.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
But the other thing is a social obligation, right as well.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And I'll come back to the social obigation a second,
because I think how we get brought up, where we
get brought up, and how we get brought up have
a great impact on our sense of social obligation. What
would someone like you put down to some of your
strengths as a result of observing, not being told, but
observing how your mother lived her life and how your
(08:16):
mother raised you, and you know, observations that that maybe
inspired you or you felt as though were tales that
you must observe in terms of how you live your
life as a young man.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, I mean just watching your parents have to navigate that,
particularly from a perspective of a very young eyes. I mean,
I this happened my father passed up when I was five, right,
And how what I really learned from my mum just
watching the way in which she handled it and not
just stand but throughout resilience. Like what she taught me
(08:55):
really fundamentally was you need to be able to put
one foot in front of another. Really can be very
hard at times. Don't stop. Yeah, and that's the first part.
The other thing that, incidentally, that I really observed from
my mother is dignity. How important it is for you
to hold onto yours, but also how important it is
(09:16):
for you to respect everybody else's dignity too, regardless of
anyone's social station. You could be dealing with the richest
person in the world or the porest person in the world.
Everyone's a human and you've got to respect that dignity
and you've got to understand how crucial that is for
people as well as The other thing I've learned, and
the third thing I really learned from my mum is frankly,
the importance of family. Like we were very very very
(09:38):
tight knit family. We still are, but how important that
is for so many of us and therefore and the
community that sits around it, and I mean lots of
immigrant communities, particularly when I was growing up there weren't
that many people from India in Australia. Very different now,
but just everyone was there for everybody else. And that
importance of community and your obligations to each other really
(10:01):
is the other lesson I picked up from it.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And does that somehow bleed into how you approach your politics.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeap, that is the I mean, where do you get
your values and where do you get your principles? And
the good politicians know the answer to that question. And
where do I get my values and where do I
get my principles? I get it from my experiences and
my experiences where that you know the importance of people
being able to like to care for each other. It's
(10:30):
a fundamental part of how I think I have to
approach my job as well. But the point I was
baking about the dignity of people. You deal with lots
of different people in politics, but you have to respect
where everyone's coming from and treat everybody with respect when
you agree with them and when you discribe them.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
So I've had people sort of come back to me
and say, this guy's actually liberal, is not actually a
labor party. And that's quite interesting because whilst on one hand,
you have to respect and be, in your case a
(11:05):
little bit even responsible for people's dignity as a or
of the state and as a senior leader in the
party that runs the state and has done for a
while now and probably will do for quite a while
in the future. You probably know that I am a
big Christmians fan so and he says high and I
say high back. But also you can make a decision
(11:26):
as to which stream of that dignity and awareness and
social impact that you're going to have, which stream of
that in relation to the Labor Party that you sit.
So maybe you could explain perhaps the difference between to
(11:47):
our listeners and most we don't know this, but the
nuances within the Labor Party, Like there is a Libor
party by the way, there's some of the left, some
of the rights on the middle, Labor parties on the left,
some of the rights in the middle. Where does Daniel
Murky sit in relation to that?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean, look, I've always been I don't want.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
To be too rigid. I'm sorry about if.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
It's a great question.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Because you probably obviously it seems to me like as
someone come from your background, you respect enterprise, but at
the same time you want to look after those people
who need to look after.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, I guess the way I would describe it is
the type of I'm from the part of the Labor Party,
and I've always been attracted to the Labor Party in general.
But the part of the Labor Party that I obviously
am part of is the part that I guess the
poor Heating, Bob Hawk, Bob Carr, Chris Mints part of
the Labor Party, which is you do respect enterprise, and
(12:38):
you respect enterprise because it is also what provides people
with labor and therefore wages, and therefore gives them the
economic power to make decisions for themselves and for me,
How did I get exposed to that? Again, it goes
back to the product of my own childhood. So when
I was growing up, Bob Hawk and Porkeating were obviously
in charge of the country at the time. And but
(13:00):
I remember so vividly that when particularly I started to
turn about eight nine is when Bob Hawk and pork Eating.
Bob Hawk's last election put back to get ready for
Porkting's first is when I start to pay a bit
more attention to what's going on.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Early nineties.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, and that's but that's the same time my family's
going through a lot of hardship. The reason we got
through it was because there was an excellent public school.
And the reason why we got through it was because
my mum could go to Taife and equally she got
a with us pension that Bob Hawk brought in and
she got access to superannuation, and I remember quite vividly
(13:41):
in nineteen ninety in the recession we had to have
when there were redundancies going around. She held on to
her job because the union stepped in to make sure
that she could. And that's how I learn my ethoss
too as well. But what I the lesson I drew
out of that was that each of us need to
the tools to succeed, and everyone, not everybody, gets access
(14:02):
to that by birth every And what's great about this
don't most don't right, And what's great about this country
is we've built a way which again you could be
spring boarded up, but also if something goes wrong, there's
the same thing that to catch you on the way down.
And that's the sort of part of the Labor Party
that I've always been most attracted to. And for me,
my attitude has always been that the principles are very strong,
(14:24):
how you apply them has to change. And I'm of
the view that what works best for people is when
ye labor and frankly enterprise working partnership to the extent
to which they can, and everyone gets to share.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
In the prosperity.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
But also when things go wrong, everybody shares the risk, yeahs.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And that's sort of like a little bit like the
mandate of the Reserve Bank. You know, it's about maintaining
the prosperity and welfare of all Australians, which is that
the words of their mandate. And you know, welfare is
just as important as prosperity. You don't want too much
prosperity as the cost of welfare. You' don't too much
welfare cost of prosperity as as fine.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It comes out of hard work.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And I'm from the part of the I guess what
brings me to the labor side of politics is that
I think people should be rewarded for hard work. Some
of the Liberal Party, don't get me wrong, we just
have different ideas as to how you do that. And
from my perspective though, the work ethic is so crucial,
and I just think also work gives people dignity, work
keeps people identity. I think it's so important and I
(15:22):
think it's why I'm from that part of the Labor
Party that says, yep, if you work hard, you should
get ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
So well, I've always had a view on work ethic,
not always I've had a more mature view on work
ethic of maybe the last twenty years competit what I
was when I was a kid, when I was a
young man. When I was a young man, I took
work ethic to mean the heart of the harder you work,
the greater reward. But as i've some time later, maybe
(15:49):
o the last twenty years, I've realized that my work here,
I think is driven by the fact that I'm blessed
that I can work, and then therefore, because I have
their blessing, I should use it. And what I don't
like is where I get sort of impeded, something impedes
my ability to use the thing that I've been I've
been blessed with them. What I mean by I can work,
I'm physically okay, able to get up early morning and
(16:09):
do my reading and do whatever else I do. I
was lucky enough to go through a university system which
I went through in those days was free, and in
fact I got given money to go to university because
you know, I've got some scholarships and things like that.
But those things don't exist anymore, and I'm a big
believe in those things. But I also think I owe
my country for doing that for me. And I grew
(16:31):
up in the West Suburbs, not quite as far out
as you, but I was punchbowlb Punchball. I grew up Punchball.
I left there when I was seventeen, moved over these
suburbs are to go to UNI. Can I ask you
when you you obviously went to Universe, I go back
to your university days. When you were at university, were
you thinking and what did you do at university? And
(16:52):
by the way, when you whatever it is you were doing,
what were you thinking about Australian's welfare during that period?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, I got plutus, so I was quite young. I
mean when Bob Pocketting lost, I started to pay a
lot more attention to politics because I know, yeah, you
start to notice the nation's changing and then so I
spent a lot of time. Then I just started watching
the news and starting reading the newspapers and really got
into a lot of the public debate that was happening
(17:19):
at the time. I of course was railing against John
Howard every day. The irony, of course, Mark is at teenage,
Daniel Walkie hated John Howard and Peter Costello. Forty three
year old Daniel Walkie goes actually I disagree with a
lot of what they said and what they believed, but
I respect their professionalis. I respect the way in which
they approached the office. So yeah, that's how so my
(17:41):
appetite for public debate was kind of wedded in that
period of time. So when I went to university, I
wanted to do two things. So I wanted to do economics.
I wanted to do law, and so I did undergraduate,
I spent my time looking at economics.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
For what it's worth, I ended up.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Immersing myself in the final parts of Japanese monetary policy, and.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Wasn't all that good.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well actually at the time it wasn't, but all the
work that effectively then Ben Benaki unleashes on the world
in twenty two thousand and eight, quantity of easy all
pioneered by the back of Japan nineteen eight to two
thousand and two. That's what I ended up spending a
lot of time reading about.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And then so I did.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Laurel I did economics, and then the university uts utes
and then so.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
That must have just become a UNI at that stage because.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
It was was a university. It became a university in
eighty six. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, when when John Dawkins
converted them from John Dawkins the Polytechnical Institute University.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, effectively. Well, by the way, universities as Wales, I
was one of the first students to do Niverse to
be a university student because it was a tech. So
I started them in seventy three. Yeah, well, and it
was a tech also it became a university and by
the way, great places to be when they became universities. Yes, yeah,
because they actually were really enthusiastic about their students. Ambitious, innovative, unbelievable,
(19:03):
innovative and ambitious was fantastic. So you got you went
through that process that used it.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
And then when I finished, I did a master's just
for fun in defense studies. And so whilst I was
working as a lawyer at a trade union, I just
did masters for defense studies because I was very interested
in strategy.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
That's that's no wonder Chris Joy loves you because that's
that's his defense policy and strategy is something that he's
absolutely besided with all but he's an economist, but he
loves that.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, if you get if you kind of look at
strategy or defense and you look at economics, you start
to see how the two meld.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
It's a really good good background to have, and sort
of I think from my perspective, I do think it
gives you a lot more insight into how sort of
particularly global markets are interacting.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Out of state, especially at the moment, especially right now,
right like right now, it's critical. I just want to
go did the Labor Party? Will you a member Labor Party?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Younger?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah? Yeah, so you were a member a party during
that period.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
My mum wouldn't let me join until I was eighteen,
but when she did join, I signed up and I
remember I went to my first young labor event. I
think the third person I met is now the Premier
of New South Wales.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Oh really yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
We were all teenage young labour rights and so Chrismins
was there, as was a lot of now the senior
cabinet as well, the deputy Premier, and I r saw
it was a very similar age and so she joined
up as well.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
We started in the same year.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
How is she, by the way, she's getting better. Yeah, yeah,
but she's obviously going through a tough time right now.
But she's a real trooper.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I wish are my best done. So when someone comes
to you and says, what does someone come to you
and say, identify you as a smart young lawyer or
an economist, and you know, one of the better students
at the uts, and say, we better get this kid
into our end of our gang. You join. We were eighting.
But like, did someone sort of earmark you or yeah
(21:00):
you the other way?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Well, I certainly got him.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I threw myself into it, into the Labor Party and
the labor movement. But to be frank, back then I
was far more interested in sort of the industrial relations
side of the labor movement.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
As a lawyer though.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, well as a lawyer, yeah, I mean Bill Keltv
a C. T.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Daddy A kind of meant they had a real interest
in labor economics and sort of how people get treated
at work.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
One of the emperors of the Labor Party. Yes, and Bill,
by the way railing, and I should say this to Jim.
Bill is railing about what you're trying to do to superinnuation. Mate,
listen to Bill.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
But anyway, so I got in, and then yeah I did.
Actually I had the opportunity just to generally as being
a bit of a Labor Party activist and a movement
activists now Senator Tony Sheldon, he was the head of
the Truckers Union back then, and so he took a
punt on me and he hired me to work as
his summer intern. And when he was in charge of
the transport workers Union, and I ended up at the
(21:52):
airport talking to taxi drivers, food caterers, and then garbage
workers and then concrete cards and small business please or not,
they have a lot of small businesses in the transport
owner drivers and a lot of them are in the union.
And so it was a great education. And so he
took a punt on me.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
And you apply for it or he reached out.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I applied for it, but I knew him, and so
I knew him, and also I have some friends who
also he was very good at mentoring a lot of
young people. And so a lot of people, believe it
or not, you will see that have quite who've gone
up to quite a lot of heights in the Labor Party,
in the Labor movement, will trace their lineage to sort
of I guess being mentored by Tony and the TWU
(22:35):
and they took a punt on me.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
What you learn from those experiences. So you've got your
childhood experience with your mum and watching how hard work
sort of pays off, and it's nearly a non negotiable.
And then you go off into the university, you do
a economics law degree, you graduate, you're part of the
labor movement, you get luckily enough to get mentored by somebody,
(22:58):
and you get an expersions. How does that form or
refine your values and principles relative to being a politician.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Well, actually two things.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
When you kind of I mean, people love unions, they
hate unions like people don't tend not to have an
opinion in the middle. And I'll leave it to others
to judge. But for me personally, what I learned just
by a being there and b watching how Tony and
a lot of the leadership they were handling it was
just how the stakes really matter for people. And so
(23:33):
when you are asking a person who's a small business
who has mortgaged their house.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Might have a truck to buy a truck, yep.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
And if something goes wrong with their business, they lose
the truck, they lose their job, and they lose their
house and they have to explain it to their family.
You start to learn that you have a lot a
duty of care, and so you learn very quickly that
they're not hiring you and they're not paying their membership
fees expecting you to be reckless. And what you learn
(24:05):
is very quickly is that when you are having to
negotiate pay and negotiate conditions and yes, often a lot
of conflict, that you are leading people, and the responsibility
of leadership is also paired with the need to be caring.
But I was a disciplined and another really simple way
(24:27):
of putting it is that if you're asking someone to
go on strike, if you're asking someone to stop being
on strike, you need to know why are you asking
them to give up their pay and also what are
we fighting for? How are we going to get a resolution,
and how are we going to make sure that the
enterprise you're working with survives. Really one of the people
(24:49):
one of the best pieces of advice I got there
from a mentor at the union was anyone can get
their people to go on strike, it's getting them to
go back in.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
It's the hard bit.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And when you're telling someone that they're not going we
get paid, you better tell them why, and you better
have a strategy and you better better know how you're
going to get them what they want, and you're just
going to make sure that you're not risking their job
in the long term. That's the sort of ethos you learn,
and that's what I learn. And I want to say
the other thing is when you're having to stand up
at four in the morning at a kitchen at an
(25:20):
airline that produces food for airlines, you've got to treat
them with dignity. But I've got to tell you that
there's a no bullshet attitude out there.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Use your perspective, produce.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, yeah, And I tell you when you're talking to
gabos at four in the morning, five in the morning,
there's a no bullsheit attitude towards it. And when you're
talking to owner drivers at six pm at night have
come in for a meeting, who we are negotiating a
contract with some of the biggest firms that literally they
mortgage their house.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Everything's on the line.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
So that's what you mean by the steaks what's in it?
Ready steaks being what am I staking? What am I
potentially going to lose?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
And that ethos is something for a politician is important
because you have a public trust.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
As long as you've experienced it, and not everyone does.
But so you look at that, and obviously this year
and last year, this state has had a lot of
issues around railway unions and all that sort of stuff,
and do you And I've sent a lot of commentary
from you and often I and I'm glad you told
me this because often I'm thinking to myself, Daniel's only
(26:22):
looking at this from the point of view of what
the economy can afford, as opposed to I think probably
what you're going to now sad music. But I also
know what they're what they're trying to do. I understand
what's in it for them, why they're trying to improve
their position. Do you get like conflicted? And then when
Chris says, look, mate, we have to make a call
on this, you know, and which you did? You guys
(26:43):
made some really tough calls relative to the union's claims.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, But look, the other way of putting it, Mark
is is that you know, you need to know how
to fight for your beliefs, often against your friends as well.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I have great respect
for the training. Does it mean I agree with them
and everything. No, But also as a labor politician and
a labor treasurer who's been elected by the public, who
(27:09):
holds a position on public trust, I always look for
what's in the public interest has to come first, and
often you can find mutual interests with the people within
me negotiating. But that does mean, yeah, often you do
feel conflicted. But I'm comfortable with it because from my perspective,
people deserve a train and we.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Need people as in consumers.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Consumers, yeah, and that's what our job as a government
is to deliver their essential services. And that often does
mean yep, you've got to have some tough conversations with
your workforce, respectful conversations with your workforce, and you have
to be looking for a solution at all times. Don't
get me wrong, but yeah, often that does mean you
have to say no. And I'm comfortable with that.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Because because I've thought about I've heard you and listened
to and watched and thought about Chris as well, and
you know, especially when they're being in et cetera about
some of those conflicts, particularly during the Transport blue that
was happening six months ago whenever it was and went
off at maybe a year I used to think to myself,
(28:13):
how does someone like Daniel balance off with what the
state can afford? Do you have to sit down and think, well,
this could cause a cascade of claims amongst others, and
we as a government who have to pay these wages
relative to the services being provided to the consumers. Do
you sit down and say we just can't afford this.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
And when you say the unions, how do they respond?
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Well, often they disagree, yeah, and you can afford it.
Though afford it both. I mean, they will obviously make
both points, and that's their job. I get that that's
their job. Their job is to argue hard. But my
job is also to argue hard. And you often do
find yourself where you just can't agree, and that does
often lead to industrial action which you don't have to
(28:58):
be resolved.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
And a few times you went to the Fair Work
Commission and got rulings which I thought was good.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
But Mark, you can't duckt the hard calls.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
And the way the other way putting it is that
no one elects governments to make easy decisions like you
have to make her decisions. And if you expect to
be in government making simply easy calls. You want that,
that's just not tenable.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So from my.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Perspective, yep, you're quite right. Often I have to say
stay can't afford it. And particularly when we came to power,
we inherited a ten billion dollar deficit from the Liberal
Party and those who came before us, and a very
sharp rise in spending and a very large increase in debt.
And so from my perspective, the way through is just
to tell people the truth. We can't afford it, but
(29:42):
I should answer it. The point, from my perspective, the
reason why I was happy and comfortable with not having
to have these conversations is because what we were offering
was us a fair and we were It wasn't like
we were saying there's a wage free people pay card.
We weren't saying that we've been saying to people along.
In fact, we've been able to show up people that
we've delivered in New Southwest police officers the best pay
(30:03):
rise in a generation, once in a decade, pay rise
incidentally for by reform, by fixing a police insurance game
that was broken. So from my perspective, you could have
those conversations if you're offering people the truth and you're
offering them fairness and if they reject it, they reject it.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
That doesn't mean we have to agree.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So it's interesting that your position in relation to being
put into conflict is something you're quite comfortable with. And
you made the very good point, and it's a point
I wish all governments in Australia would adopt, is that
you will be put in conflict and you're not there
to please everybody, and you've got to do something which
is going to make someone unhappy. And that's a pretty
(30:48):
ballsy position to be prepared to take, to be honest
with you, and that's a pretty big cool to make.
Why is it that you guys do it? You and Minsen,
the rest of you, the rest of your team made
those calls, and perhaps you may not want even comment on,
but perhaps others find it less palatable to be able
to make those calls.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh, I mean, look, I think lots of people are
making very hard decisions right now. I mean, the nation
and the state's coming out of some pretty tough times
and there are hard decisions that need to be made.
And you can't please everybody, that's for sure. And everybody
approaches it from a very different perspective. I guess what
I would say, though, is that it's a credit to
Chris and the way he leads a government and the
mandate he got and the party got when we were
(31:31):
elected two years ago.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
We were elected to help solve the states.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Problems and particularly to make sure that people have good jobs,
they can afford to live in the city, they have
a roof over their head, and they've got great services
in their neighborhoods. That's a really cool why we were here,
and we've been pretty upfront that will be candid about
what goes well. We'll also talk about what needs to
(31:53):
be done better. And yet we weren't elected to deduct
the easy decision the hard decisions.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Were elected to make them.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
And so from my perspective, I can't really answer a
question other than to say that's the ethos that we
bring and it does mean Yet we are making some
pretty tough calls, like you know, but it's leading to
better results for people in New South Wales. I mean,
we were in a pretty tough fight from the first
year and we got here with the teachers, but we
managed to land that in a scenario which delivered teachers
(32:21):
are great pay rise. But why is that good for
the people in New South Wales Because today we have
nearly half the number of counceled and merged classes in
public schools and New South Wales which more kids are
getting more access to more teachers, we've got more kids
getting access to tutoring. So from my perspective, the way
the reason why we make the calls is because we
(32:42):
know it leads to better outcomes for the people of
New South Wales and people we were elected to serve.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And so there's no way to avoid it.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
If you want change, at times you have to disappoint people,
but you've got to tell people about why you're doing it.
You're going to be straight with what you're expecting to flow,
and then you've got to be accountable for the decisions
you make.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So because you've gone through teachers, nurses and transport, there
are the three big ones. Is there anything else?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, well, I mean look there's a lot.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Obviously police police weren't giving you trouble. I mean there
was no strike or whatever. Maybe it was, we didn't
know about it. But those three are the sort of
the standout ones. And I told you you held your
ground every time, and so did your So did your leader,
your premier, how's that relationship? I mean you explained us
how you first met, but how did that relationship come
(33:30):
about when you know, when the party was formed and
was running running for government, how did your relationship? Potentially
is the treasurer become a reality? Well, I mean with
the premier? Is that how worse to the premier point
the treasure how yes?
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, So I mean he's obviously as a leader
of the party and he allocates the jobs to everybody else,
so he's one who makes the call as to who
gets to do what. Obviously the deputy Premier gets a
pretty big say in choosing watch he wants to do.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Chris got elected leader of the Labor Party when the
Labor Party was in real trouble actually and needed to
was out of power for about ten years here in
New South Wales.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yea, and you had a lot of legacy crappiatity with
the Obedes said a drama.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, but he got elected as a frankly a new
generation like none of us were around at that point
in time, with all the legacy issues.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
With the bed and so he set up he's set
up a very good ethos.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Amongst the leadership team and the people who lead the
news and lost goverment's very collaborative, it's very.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Consensus driven.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I would call it modern.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, it's very modern.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
It doesn't younger people sort of running it.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
It's very very respectful of it.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
So from his perspective, like he set subviously the tone.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
But obviously it's a huge privilege to be a.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Treasurer of the state and be a treasurer in the
other government. I have to say, as treasurers are only
as effective as their premiers will let them be. And
I'm very fortunate that I have a very good relationship
with the premiere as well, and he is a very
collaborative leader to work with, which means that we can
make the tough decisions.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
We do it as a team.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So you were talking about, you know, the sort of
some of the tough decisions, sort of your tactical stuff.
You know, I'm dealing with the transport, I'm dealing with
this issue, dealing with that issue. There. The day to
day bushfires is got to be put out and that's
their hard they're hard calls every day, probably you know,
many times per day every day. But then we can
talk about the strategy stuff. One of the things I
wanted to talk to about today's your budget. You've just
(35:24):
leished your budget and there is there your strategy. That's
that's New South Wales economic strategy for the start of
the next twelve months. You've just released it. I saw
that you took a fairly what I would call call
economically pragmatic position. You've you're looking to build surpluses. Yep,
it's different to a lot of other governments.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, I on the prize here Mark as well. You
have to deal with a lot of tactical issues and
state politics. Issues are up every day, but you got
to keep your eyes on the prize, right, Why we here?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
What do we want to do?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And so when we will framing the budget, we're framing
the budget knowing that there's really three very important things
we have to do for the New Cell worlds's future. First,
make sure people get a home, and we are dealing
with the housing crisis. We have to make sure we
keep building more homes for people to live. We can't
duck the fact that we just haven't been building enough
homes here in New South Wales. We need to build,
We need to build, and we need to build, and
(36:16):
so we did a lot of our settings. We're designed
to make sure that we were intervening into the markets,
working with the private sector to really get more homes
built in New South Wales and to give the private
sector a lot of confidence to say yes to those
investment cases. Why is that important because go back to
the sort of what we started. If you happen to
be a family in a circumstance similar to mine annuals,
(36:37):
be it in Punchable or beat in Marylands, if you
don't get access to a good home, you don't get
anything else. And if you haven't got housing security, your
capacity to get to the education is diminished. To your
capacity to convert your work into wealth harder, very hard.
So we want to get more of that done. The
second thing we have to do is yet we have
to do a lot of fiscal repair. At a time
where interest rates have been high, inflation has been high.
(37:00):
We've been very conscious that if we simply pour more
fuel on the fire, who ends up paying it. It's
frankly people with mortgages. And so in my first budget,
in our second budget, we were pretty determined to get
our expense growth under control and to.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Show an expense government expense growth.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah, when I came to power and into this office
and the government came to power, should say that the
news tap world's expenses were growing at roughly twenty four
percent a year the previous year on average six point
four percent over the previous five years, not sustainable at
a time of high inflations. Had to come down, and
so we have actually been able to report that we've
(37:37):
brought that down to now about two point four percent.
The other thing I should just say is the debt.
The debt has to be stabilized and brought down, and
I'm really pleased that by the end of this financial
year that's just started, we're on track to have about
ten billion dollars lower debt than we would have had
it under our predecessors as well.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
And why is that important?
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Because everyone who's paying attention to markets right now knows
there a lot of a lot of uncertain and if
you happen to be in the bond market or exposed
to the bond market, which I know a lot of
your listeners we would pay a lot of attention to,
it's in a lot of state of flux, and so
us being able to show that we're the only state
that actually cut its forecast for issuance after the budgets.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I think it's really important.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
It was a big deal to by the way, I
probably it's the bilot of people, but that's a big call.
I mean, strategically for a labor party. It's not something
I would not ordinarily expect to happen. I actually thought
it was very brave, courageous, great call. How do you
look at that in relation to maybe what their rating
agencies are thinking?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Well, I'm thinking about where are we going as a
state and what do we need right? And so the
rating agencies have been clear from the moment I became
treasurer the credit rating is at a real risk.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Has been for a privilege.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, it's a pretty much ours is a privilege, yeah, efetually.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, So we've been conscious of it for a while.
The rating agencies are going to have to make their
own minds up. But put it this way, after the
budget we gave just last week, our metrics are better.
Debt is stable as a percentage of GSP, and the
only state that's showing it coming down as well, it's
a lot lower than otherwise thinks. We are literally going
(39:15):
to the bond market and asking for less money today
than we people were expecting us two weeks ago. So
from my perspective, I think it's a really important signal
to send that here in New South Wales the finances
are stabilizing. Is the job done No, obviously it's not
done there. But I'm really pleased that we are now
able to show that there is a pathway back to surplus.
A lot needs to go right. I'm very cautious about it.
(39:37):
I'm not doing any vitory laps whatsoever. I mean, I
remember when I gave my first budget we had a
pathway to surplus. Then the very next year in New
South Wales got hit with a massive reduction in GST income.
We had twelve billion dollars taken off us. This year
we've been able to show people that we're getting on
with our job, but we are stabilizing the state's finances.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
As well with twelve billion less.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Yeah, we lost twelve billion in revenue last year in
GS the biggest hit in the New Civil's revenue in decades.
The last year's Comonwealth Grant's decision on the GST break
up between the states, and every year the way I
should just explain it is that the common Wealth Grants Commission,
independent body sits federally tells every state what you're going
to get. We lost a lot of money. We lost
(40:18):
more money from their decision than we did during COVID,
so a big hit to the finances, which obviously is
my job to manage as a treasurer.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Do you think you did You get a chance to arguement.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Ah, no, you make.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Your case, but you know it's pretty opaque. Put it
this way, I can not explain to your listeners.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
How they carve it up.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Couldn't do it. So it's such a weird way in
which to allocate.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's about contribution that I don't understand it like it
is about it can't be about numbers of people.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Well, it's a.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Bit about numbers of people, and it's a bit about
how much they think it costs to deliver services in
your state.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
But if you're doing a really good job delivering services
in the state, or is it their services they deliver
in your state, No.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
It's ours.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
So if you're doing a really good job at it.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
You often can lose money.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Says counterintuitive to me. Be getting rewarded for.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Well there you go. If you blow and behold, if
they kind of think that perhaps that you're more I
guess one view efficient the conclusion is less you need less. Yeah,
so it's it's a weird system, right, And Mark, I'm
not being cute and saying this. We could be here
for the next two hours. I'm still not sure I'd
be able to shed much light in how it works,
(41:22):
other than to say it's widely unpredictable. And it's certainly
from my perspective, if you can't understand it, people want
support it. And I think we can do better as
a nation in fixing it.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
So last year you you twelve down, billin down in
terms of allocation from the GST.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
That's a big part of every state's budget.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, and that right, And so as a result of that,
for this budget, you had to go about and make
sure you cut the cloth to suit yep, and start
to reduce costs. We have to we have to make
an assumption that you're not going to get you're not
going to stock going to increase for some.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Well, basically we have to keep cost gross down. We
haven't been sort of having to because a lot of
the work we did in our first budget we were
able to absorb the impact. But it just means we've
had to keep ourselves in a very disciplined posture and
it means that you have to say no to a
lot of things as treasule, a lot of things have
a lot of merit. But again, Mark, you know, is
that every business in every house that has to do
the same thing. Yeah, it's not like you do it
(42:15):
all the time. You have to do it all the time,
and so for governments as well, it's important. Then other
thing I sort to say is why I think it's
important for the economy really large, is that we need
to get more private sector growth happening. This is a
conversation the nation's happening. I agree very much with the
federal government when they say that the next era of
Australian growth is going to need to be led by
(42:35):
the private sector. But for us, what that means is
by showing that we're stabilizing our finances here in New
South Wales, it's giving the private sector a lot more
confidence to go. Okay, we want to invest more in
the state and the state's up in for business.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
So one of the initiatives, now, forgive me if I
got this not quite right. But one of the initiatives
that you were talking about is in relation to probably
the wrong word to use, but sort of underwriting developed.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Yeah, pre self finance guarantee, because.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
That's an important one. So it's not only about house
avoidability or housing supplies, I should say, but correct me
if I'm wrong. Is that because apart from you know,
first time grant and all those sorts of things, the
end of the day, housing supplies not from the governments,
from developers and you've got to make it such that
they can borrow money and if they can't, and usually
(43:25):
they borrow money from banks, sometimes from private lenders, but
usually from banks. And the banks have a fairly strict
regime which that they're made to have through the regulator,
that they have pre sales and they'll only lend up
to a certain percentage of the tital development costs, et cetera.
Was that something you guys sat around and unpicked and
worked out. This is something we have to in New
South Wales. Aggresses so major you can you just explain
(43:48):
what it is you did, You've.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Launched, So it is sort of it's what I would
describe as a canny use of the government's balance sheet. Careful,
very very care full use but can he use? And
it comes from this you sit in talking to people
about what's stopping them from getting going on construction.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So the only land out of camp and where it is,
got a couple of thousand put ten thousand hours on there,
but they're not doing it. They're just land being it.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah. Well, alternatively, actually they've got approval to build.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Some apartments near railway stations in neighborhoods people love to
live in, and they need to go and convince their lenders, banks, finances,
private credit that there's enough bias. Often what they're being
told is you need to have eighty percent of the
STOCKSLT PRESLT committed. Yep, you need to show us that
(44:43):
you have eighty percent sold. What we've said is, well, actually,
if you're building at that level, those sort of mid
tier apartments in these neighborhoods, which everyone selling me are
the most challenging projects to get feasibility approve.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
On a billion dollar development.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Billion dollar can be up to a billion, but equally
we're talking about, for example, the six to nine, three
to nine story right apartments, particularly that mid tier in
areas that are already built up.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And in zones where you would like to see more
development a relative to say transport.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Yeah, where we've already got transport, we've got schools, where
we've got water, where you're ready to go, like the
neighborhoods can absorb a bit more housing. And also there's
lots of people who are renting in these suburbs who
are looking for a place to buy, and so it's
the first step on the housing. Latter is the other
way putting it. But just by talking to those people
who are doing that, all of them were saying, well,
(45:39):
these are the most challenging projects to get we get
to fifty percent sales, but the bank's one eighty.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
If you step.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
In and just go, you'll buy some of them, like
you're prepared to buy. You the government, you the government
will buy some of them as.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
A buyer of last results, so to speak, and not
one of last result, but underwrite the buy under the buying.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Right you just that gap, just that gap. That's an
enough for us to then unlock the money and get
the construction going.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
That's enough to convince the banks or the lenders that
were in fact the banks, the lenders going to say well, wow,
that's a government, So triple a rate a government. That's
not bad. That's a good enhancement.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
And for the people in New South Wales, right, what's
the worst outcome we get we get a.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
House, we by you, the state government have a house.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
We end up getting the house.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Yeah, and we get the house and we can then
use it for social housing or affordable housing, or we'll
sell it ourselves in the event that happens. So it's
a pretty canny use of the sort of state's balance sheet.
We say, all right, well, we're prepared to go as
a buyer and underwrite the buy and that gap. That
means we can bring forward roughly fifteen thousand additional private
(46:42):
sector dwellings, which is not a silver bullet, But there's
no one policy that's a silver bullet. It's how they
all work with each other. And what that means is that, yeah,
we are building more homes for people to buy and
for people to rand at relatively low risk for the
state of New South Wales, which is what we need
to do if we're serious about getting the house in crisis.
But you brought upon is right, mark the housing crisis
(47:03):
will be solved by the private sector building more homes
only way, only way, and we were doing our bit,
and when it comes to social housing, we're doing our
bit when it comes to essential worker housing. But ultimately
we need all of it above, win all of the
above solution. And the way I put it is, we
need more homes for social housing, we need more affordable homes,
(47:23):
we need more homes for our central workers, we need
more homes for people to buy and rant, we need
more humps and so from our perspective, the Premier has
made it very clear as a government, this is a
core mission to us and so we're doing what we
need to do to make sure that people have a
roof over their head.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
I have heard some people say criticize all government's been
in particular the new Southwalest government as well, because your
contribution towards the one point two million houses over the
next now four years, which is what was the federal
government sort of discussion about a year or so ago.
You won't make it. Probably you won't make it. But
the point I think the point being here is from
your point of view, at least in relation to this budget,
(47:58):
is this is a start, and you can't you just
spa say I know we're not going to make it,
probably won't make it, but that doesn't mean I can't
do anything. I'm going to try and make it. So
where just just if you could just explain to me
where does that it's called a credit enhancement? What you
what you've actually done if you enhanced the credit of
the builder relative to the lender, for the lender to
(48:20):
grant the builder developer the money to do the development.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I've done.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Think I've ever seen a government put their balance sheet
up effectively by underwriting that enhancement, which is pretty typically
what lenders want to see relative to a developer. How
did how do I mean, where does that idea come from?
Like do you do you talk to credit providers? Do
(48:46):
you go out and talk to well known builders and
say mate, what is it that you need to lay
you get this project up and running?
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Yes, we do, and that's what good company will work.
They listen and credit to the Planning Minister paulk here
in New South Wales and his department that's been at
the front lines of all these conversations. And in fact,
how did this policy come about? We were having these
conversations two years ago with what do we need to
do what's stopping people? And Paul last budget we're a
(49:17):
very quiet announcement we did the two of us did
on a Saturday morning in which we said, all right,
we'll have put it a little bit of money to
look at this, and not big amounts of money, but
enough money for us to then start getting in do
the proper policy work that's designed and then Paul and
his team have driven it since. And as Treasurer, of course,
when it comes to the use of the balance sheet,
the Treasurer has to be comfortable and we had a
(49:37):
real look at it. We got in there how to
do a lot of due diligence and we spoke to
a lot of people industries, spoke a people in the banks,
what stops you? And yes, because we were doing that listening,
we were able to come up with this nation leading
scheme which we will hopefully bring forward about fifteen thousand
dollars in the next sort of few years. So from
our perspective, that's what governments need to do. Like and
(50:00):
frankly here in New South Wales, we're unabashed about the
fact that we will listen to anyone who's got a
good idea from a business be a union, be an
industry group. If we're signing, if we want to solve
the housing crisis, we're all going to have to work
with each other.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Yeah, And I just think is a great example for
other states to consider. And I guess that's what leadership
is all about. You know, taking a risk. You are
taking a risk, but based on you know, as you said,
due diligence and mean you at the end of the day,
the worst comes to words, you end up owning house.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
But Mark, the other point is this, doing nothing is risky. Yeah,
to one hundred percent, Like doing nothing's lost locking out
an entire generation from the prospect of ever owning a home,
and that doing nothing is to risk us losing our
egoitarian ethos, which says, no matter where you come from,
you can get ahead, and you can own and you
can build your wealth here in this state and in
this country. So from my perspective, the status quo is risky.
(50:53):
And yep, you've got to be very careful when you're
using the state's balance sheet, don't get me wrong. But
from my perspective, we're trying to solve a challenge, and
a pretty immense challenge of it, and we need to
make some progress just in order to make sure that
we can hold on to what we have here. So
from our perspective, we should be listening and yep, we
should be working in partnership with everybody, workers, unions, business
(51:14):
industry to get more homes billed for people.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
And I just think for me, it's one of the
best in issues I've seen for a government to do,
the state or federal for a long long time being
prepared to step in and use their balance sheet in
order to get a really important outcome that is housing,
more housing, more housinges the Treasurer just to kick finalize
this thing off, finalize our conversation off. What are the
(51:39):
some of the highlights that you'd like to point out
in relation to your latest budget.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
I mean, there's one thing that I'm really proud of
that we did in this budget, which is we delivered
the biggest increase to child protection in New South Welsest history.
And these are for kids who it's not safe for
them to stay at home. These are for kids who
need to be looked after by the government and foster
cares and a lot of our charities in non for profits,
we in this budget made a one point two billion
(52:05):
dollar investment in better child protection and equally delivered the
first increase in the foster carries allowance in real terms
for twenty years and for those people who are caring
for kids who are not their own, really important that
they can afford to do so. So I'm really pleased
about that, and why I'm most really proud about that
(52:26):
is because the way in which we paid for it
wasn't just simply to throw more money at it. We
actually fixed a lot of the problems that we were
dealing with in child protection that we started this working
year one Mark.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
I mean, I guess when we became.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
When we got sworn in, when Chris became premiy, I
became a treasurer, and Kate Washington became the minister responsible
for this. Here in New South Wales, we had one
hundred kids on average a night sleeping in motels.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
And I can't believe that I got a shocked bye.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Yeah, one hundred odd kids every night for the two
years of really hard work and reform behind the means
meant that though there's as of April this year, no
kids were sleeping from hotels, And just to put that
in really numeric terms, those are kids sleeping in that
type of arrangement per year cost roughly a million dollars.
(53:14):
A million dollars because we had so many of them.
This was not a good use of public money and
it wasn't learning into a good outcome for the kids.
But because we've been fixing that for two years, we
now have that money to then re employ into a
much better system. And I'm really proud of that because
that's a lot of hard work that our government has done,
and again that Minister has led us and the Premiere
and as a team have delivered. But that's the type
(53:36):
of stuff that reminds you about why you're.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
In this job and anything which you wanted to throw
out that highlight in raace to your budget.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
The other thing I'm really proud of as well with
this particular budget is again we are showing people that
we are making investments in the things that we care
about at the same time we're stabilizing the finances treasure.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
I know you've got some you've got a lunch you
go to go and attend and I'm getting wound up
by my crew over this idea, But I really appreciate
you coming in there and uh. And Chris, everything you
said about him, he's lived up to it.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Mate. That's a great chat. Thanks mate,
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