WA Budget 2025: Rita Saffioti's second budget delivers $2.4 billion surplus as power credits axed

Western Australia's resources-rich economy is continuing to shower the state with cash, with today's state budget revealing a healthy $2.4 billion surplus for the next financial year.
It's the state's seventh consecutive surplus, fuelled by strong iron ore prices and a GST bonanza, and cements WA's position as the nation's top economic performer.
But the actual surplus in the year just gone ($2.5 billion) is less than the $3.1 billion forecast in December's mid-year review — and net debt is continuing to climb.
This year the state's debt sits at $33.6 billion, and with iron ore prices tipped to fall further on the back of weakening demand from China, growing pressure on the state's bottom line in coming years looks almost certain.
And despite a crippling housing crisis, the government is winding back some of its cost-of-living relief, electing to scrap its $400 electricity bill rebates for households.
Delivering the re-elected Cook government's first budget, and her second as treasurer, Rita Saffioti remained upbeat, focusing on the relative strength of the economy compared to that in other states, while warning of an uncertain global outlook.
WA's robust surplus is likely to be seized on by other states as a reason to review GST distribution arrangements, with the books revealing WA will get $7.4 billion in GST grants this financial year, rising to $7.8 billion next year.
Most of the budget was focused on delivering election commitments and already announced measures, including:
Ms Saffioti was defensive when asked about its $963 million cost of living relief package after including the Commonwealth's $150 per household subsidy in the figure.
Also included in that figure was the state government's solar home battery subsidy scheme, which it substantially reduced after the federal government also offered subsidies.
Household costs and charges will rise 2.5 per cent this year, lower than inflation, and the treasurer said cost of living relief would mainly come in the form of trying to reduce rental prices.
"We have to increase housing supply to take the pressure off rent prices," she told reporters.
Ms Saffioti said housing approvals had risen 45 per cent in the year to April and the rental vacancy rate had risen from 0.5 per cent to 2.8 per cent.
Both the treasurer and Premier Roger Cook warned of economic headwinds ahead thanks to global geopolitical instability and China's weakened economic outlook.
"Clearly these are not the global conditions anyone would have hoped for," Mr Cook said.
However, he said the budget would "set WA up for the future" by diversifying the economy and making the state a "renewables powerhouse and successfully navigate the global uncertainty we now face".
A total of $2.7 billion has been set aside to "support future growth" and make WA less reliant on other economies such as China.
That figure includes $1.4 billion for its 'Made in WA' program, which aims to boost the local manufacturing industry and create thousands of jobs.
Under the plan, electric buses and ferries will be built in WA, as will solar batteries.

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24 minutes ago

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The conceptual boundaries between the Five Ws aren't always clear-cut. There's a lot of interplay between them. For example, depending on the type of story you're covering, you might need an expert's help to know what the facts of certain phenomena are before you can even start writing about them (re: the science of climate change). But you get the gist. If you wanted to teach someone how news was generated, you'd start with a bare-bones, idealised model like that. Then you'd take the next step. You'd say we always need to remember that they're just stories, at the end of the day. They're trying to turn the chaos and confusion of reality into a comprehensible "story" that helps the human brain to make sense of a very complex world. And what sets the media's stories apart from other kinds of stories (such as fairytales, or novels, or films) is they're supposed to be "true", or an honest attempt to "tell the truth" about reality. That's the implied social compact. And given that assumption about the media's stories, people who consume "the news" are more willing to let the media's stories shape their perception of the world in ways they wouldn't dare allow for other kinds of stories (like fairytales). So, cognitively, readers let their guard down a little. And that makes the media's stories uniquely potent. It's why there's a global multi-billion-dollar industry dedicated to capturing, controlling, and confusing the "trusted stories" the media tells every day. Or better still, stopping the media from telling certain stories at all, by harassing, intimidating, and killing journalists in their hundreds. Is everyone in the media industry a good person pursuing a noble cause? Of course not. It's like any industry. If you work in the media long enough, it's unsurprising to learn that the "father of apartheid" in South Africa, Hendrik Verwoerd, was a former newspaper editor. Some media companies behave like the media-arm of their preferred political party, do hit jobs on their enemies, and always seem ready to manufacture consent for the next war. That's been the reality of the industry for hundreds of years. Who owns the world's media companies? But there are plenty of journalists and editors that really try to tell the truth. In independent media and the legacy media. They appreciate that they have to keep demonstrating to their readers that their stories can be trusted. They know if readers start to notice that their stories are omitting crucial facts, including basic facts of history and law, while downplaying some voices and elevating others, their readers will lose trust in their ability to tell truthful stories. And that would be dire for their news outlet. They know if they allow the powerful to dictate how stories are told, they'll be allowing the powerful to kill their stories and their audience. So they really try to stop bad-faith actors from confusing their Five Ws with waves of misinformation and intimidation: We're living in a dangerous moment in history. In the last 12 months, arms and weapons manufacturers, and cyber intelligence and security companies linked to the global war machine, have been making extremely handsome profits. The share price of Palantir Technologies has exploded by 447.57 per cent (to $US139.96) in the last year, and the value of Elbit Systems shares has surged 144 per cent (to $US438.47). Australia's sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, is making multi-million-dollar returns from its investments in such companies. Governments, militaries, and different lobby groups are trying to stop people speaking up about the atrocities they're witnessing and the concerns they have about the future. How should journalists report on these events? When it comes to media literacy, Australian audiences might be shocked to learn how difficult it is for the media to write about the world in plain language sometimes, given how strict defamation law is in this country (among other laws). They might be shocked to learn about the orchestrated bullying that goes on, which is designed to discourage editors and journalists from reporting on certain topics and framing stories in certain ways, even speaking to certain people. Would it improve media literacy if the media wrote about these issues openly and regularly? Do we want the media to speak matter-of-factly about propaganda too? Every military engages in it, including the Australian Defence Force. Governments and lobby groups engage in it. They use different propaganda strategies for different audiences (whether domestic or foreign), and apply different tactics to try to control the media narrative at different times. Consider Australia's public relations efforts in the Asia-Pacific. Our government is spending a lot of diplomatic effort cultivating relationships with our island neighbours and encouraging their people to come to work in Australia on special working visas. It would like them to think Australia is a trustworthy ally, one they can trust more than other countries in the region. But one wonders what the people of Timor-Leste think about that. Have a read of Hannah Arendt's famous essay from 1971, on the Pentagon Papers, where she expressed amazement at the degree to which the United States government deliberately lied to its citizens about the reality of the Vietnam War, and about its reasons for invading and bombing Vietnam. Or have a read of the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's most recent book, Lobbying for Zionism on both sides of the Atlantic, which goes into great detail explaining the tactics used by pro-Israel lobbies in the US and UK, including their campaigns against the BBC and the Guardian, and their campaign to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming Britain's prime minister. The former Israeli minister Shumalit Aloni, in an interview in the United States in 2002, stated plainly that pro-Israel lobbies used accusations of antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel. "Well it's a trick we always use. When in Europe somebody is criticising Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticising well, then they are antisemitic," she said. These are all things the media has to navigate. In last week's media survey, respondents said they wanted journalists "to be more courageous and ask tough questions". They wanted the media to "report the facts" and "tell the truth". But let's raise some adjacent issues. Do we want journalists to have morals? Do we want their work to be guided by their morals and ethics? Do we want them to speak up about the injustice they see around them, or do we want them to stay quiet? Is it courageous to sit in silence? George Orwell is considered one of the greatest journalists and writers of the 20th century. In 1940, he wrote a book review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. In his review, he was scornful of the British elite for their earlier support for Hitler. He was objective. He said he understood Hitler's charismatic appeal and he could see that Fascism and Nazism were tapping into something primal in the human brain. He also shared a personal opinion about Hitler: "I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him." Was that OK for a journalist to write that he would like to murder a public figure? It would probably be difficult to find many people who'd have a problem with that opinion of his, given he was talking about Hitler. But what did it mean for Orwell's journalism? One might argue that it showed it was possible to write with objectivity while feeling a deep moral disgust at the same time. Let's wrap things up with a final question. Sometimes you'll hear people saying journalists shouldn't be activists. But what they're really saying is: "Journalists shouldn't be regularly writing and talking about the issues I don't want them to be talking about, but I'm happy for them to campaign on the issues I personally think are important." All journalists are activists, in a sense. An editorial decision to run a story (or ignore a story) is based on multiple decisions, but many of those decisions relate to what they think is important. But "important" is a dangerous word. Why? Because it's impossible to define the word "important" without referencing human judgement. If you say something's important, it begs the question: important to who? At the moment, some of Australia's major news organisations are reporting very critically on the Albanese government's superannuation plan. There's an obvious media campaign going on. What's motivating the campaign? Why isn't that considered a form of activism? If we embarked on a national campaign to improve media literacy in this country, it would be fascinating to see how these topics were tackled.