Winners and losers in this year’s Victorian budget - The Age

Education

Winners

• Growth areas $492m for 13 new schools on Melbourne’s fringe. A further $276.4m will be spent to acquire land in growth areas.
• Early childhood education Kinder for three-year-olds and four-year-olds in every local government area from 2022, $401m.

Losers

• Regional Victoria No funding for new schools in the regions, just 18 of 52 school upgrades are outside Melbourne.
• International students No plans to bring students back this year and no support for 120,000 who stayed in Victoria last year.

A dozen new schools in Melbourne’s growth areas will be built by 2023. Credit:Simon Schluter

Analysis

Twelve of 13 new schools, all in Melbourne’s growth areas, will be built by 2023 but there is no money for new regional schools, despite more Victorians moving out of the city than in previous years.

And in a budget that puts a heavy emphasis on mental health, the Andrews government is also embedding family services and mental health support services into schools.

A VLocity train. Credit:Paul Jeffers

Transport

Winners

• Commuters in Melbourne’s west $93.6 million to enable high capacity trains and nine-car VLocity trains to reach Melton and Wyndham Vale by 2023. This includes cash for platform extensions at Sunshine station to allow for the longer trains that will increase available seating on regional trains by 50 per cent.
• People working from home $28 million to be spent on boosting the state’s planning system, including supporting the implementation of Plan Melbourne – a strategy that promotes 20-minute neighbourhoods, which planners say is desperately needed as more people work from home.
• Motorists Lockdown measures enabled road works to be fast-tracked, with nearly twice as many kilometres of road built with tactile line marking and safety barriers installed than was expected.

Losers

• Commuters with disabilities While $25.4 million will be spent on improving accessibility on public transport, including $7.6 million to upgrade stops with braille plates and tactile markings, there was no new money for accessible tram stops.
• Active transport No major cycling or pedestrian upgrades this year, despite a new government target for 25 per cent of trips to be on foot or bicycle by 2030 under the new Climate Change Strategy.
• Light rail An election promise to build light rail between Caulfield railway station and Rowville missed out on funding again. It received only $3 million for planning three years ago.

Analysis

This budget made necessary but modest investments in Melbourne’s rail network, including for the delivery of larger trains to reach Melton and Wyndham Vale in Melbourne’s fast-growing west.

Money was also set aside for upgrades to station and track infrastructure in Caulfield to prepare for the growth in passengers expected when the Metro Tunnel is finished in 2025.

There were no major upgrades for cycling and pedestrian infrastructure despite a recent uptick in these modes of transport during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the rollout of more accessible tram stops will be slowed by the absence of new cash.

County CourtCredit:Wayne Taylor

Justice

Winners

• Courts $210 million to boost services to deal with the backlog caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
• Victoria Police $43 million for new police stations, $40 million for redress scheme for police who are victims of sexual harassment and assault at work.

Losers

• Incarcerated youth No funding to support young people in youth justice accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme despite evidence a vast majority of imprisoned youth have a neurodevelopmental deficit.
• Fines system The government last year announced it would fund a to-be-confirmed amount on technology and resources to support Victoria’s fines system – there is no funding or mention of the initiative.

Recreational anglers will get better facilities

Regional Victoria

Winners

• Recreational fishers $19.2 million for better boating facilities across the state.
• Farmers $19.9 million to help farms adapt to climate change, including methane reducing feed.
• Regional hospitals Regional Victoria will share in $556 million for 10 new community hospitals at Torquay and Phillip Island.

Losers

• Rural roads An allocation of $265 million additional funding for metropolitan, regional and rural roads will be seen as inadequate by many regional communities.
• The tourism sector Little new for the tourism sector beyond recent announcements but the government is banking on $11.1 billion in domestic visitor expenditure.

Analysis

Regional and rural Victoria has experienced a surge in interest with first home buyers and tree-changers following the pandemic, but this year’s budget measures haven’t quite managed to address the shift.

More money is to be spent on hospitals.Credit:Paul Rovere

Health

Winners

• Hospitals $3.6 billion to meet record hospital demand.
• Pandemic response $1.5 billion to continue fighting COVID-19.

Losers

• Ageing metropolitan hospitals The budget was light on upgrades for some facilities.

Analysis

The government has responded to pleas from health unions and peak bodies to inject funding into a health system at breaking point.

Emergency departments will be boosted, and overworked paramedics will get new colleagues to take the pressure off.

The government is spending about $100 million to get people back into the primary health system so they don’t end up in emergency departments, but there will still be questions about whether enough is being done on the preventative side.

Environment

Winners

• Green space $517 million on bushfire risk reduction, and environment volunteers get $75 million for tree planting, weeds and pests.
• Indigenous Victorians Aboriginal cultural burning gets $22 million for land management.

Losers

• New national parks A year after the government’s independent panel recommended establishing new national parks in the state’s west, still no news.

Analysis

Last year, environmentalists applauded the state’s $1.6 billion investment in renewables and energy efficiency.

This budget doesn’t carry that kind of funding clout, with big spending only on bushfire risk reduction and financial sweeteners for those who buy zero-emissions vehicles.

Land care and community-led river regeneration get more money, as does management of the Great Ocean Road.

Business

Winners

• State Revenue Office It will collect $5.3 billion in new or increased taxes, levies and duties in the next four years.
• Inner-city apartment builders They will get a boost to efforts to move unsold stock with half-price stamp duty offer for units on the market for 12 months or more.
• House builders They will get the tax holiday on vacant residential land extended from one year to two and off-the-plan tax breaks – for one year only – for properties worth up to $1 million.

Losers

• Big business Firms with national payrolls of more than $10 million with national payrolls will pay $2.9 billion in the next four years to pay for the state’s ambitions mental health program.
• Property developers Will be hit with a windfall profits levy, to raise about $40 million a year, on overnight bonanzas from re-zoned land.
• Commercial landlords Will pay the vast bulk of the extra $1.5 billion in land tax the state will collect in the next four years.

Planning

Winners

• City apartment buyers Those in the market for a pad worth less than $1 million will avoid $55,000 in stamp duties with a full waiver. The move has been taken in order to clear stock abandoned with the exit of thousands of international students, and also to encourage construction in the city centre to continue its boomtime of recent years.
• Melbourne University The university will see $179 million spent clearing the former Holden factories so it can build its engineering school by 2024. The move will kickstart construction of a commercial precinct in Fishermans Bend, the abandoned industrial area in Port Melbourne, where the government wants to create a high-tech district, alongside tens of thousands of new residents in adjoining parts of the fledgling suburb.

Losers

• Docklands The suburb will see its historic Central Pier demolished, with $3 million being put aside to design a replacement.

Mental health

Winners

• The one in five Victorians struggling with poor mental health Investment in mental health was the centrepiece of the budget with $3.8 billion invested over four years to rebuild the system.
• Community-based care A big focus will be providing a “front door” for those needing mental health support, with 20 new local services across Victoria.
• Mental health workers The budget will invest in more mental health nurses, doctors, and allied health workers, creating 3000 jobs.

Losers

• Big Business A new Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy will be imposed on businesses with more than $10 million in wages nationally.

Analysis

Mental health was the centrepiece of the budget after the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System found the existing system had “catastrophically failed to live up to expectations”.

The government has pledged to adopt all 65 recommendations towards reform it says it will take a decade. The focus is on community-based care, which will provide a front-door to those needing support, and mean people will not need to travel to access services.

It will be partly funded by a new payroll tax on big business, which the Treasurer says reflects the fact that some sectors of the community benefited during the pandemic.

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2021-05-20 03:51:41Z
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