Fights over pay rises challenge a bold prediction in NSW budget

Essential workers and public servants in NSW have rejected the state budget containing pay rises to 3.5 per cent a year and will keep pushing for above-inflation wage rises.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said his budget handed down on Tuesday was more disciplined than Labor’s big-spending pre-election budget in Queensland, even as he recycled booming property tax revenue into $12 billion of new spending on government service delivery, housing and public sector wage rises.