WA Budget 2025: Are WA's growing pains with population, hospitals and housing easing at last?
The end may be in sight for Perth's growing pains, with the State's population growth forecast to drop to half of its peak in the next three years.
But not before the WA Government continues to pick up the tab for the State's heaving hospitals, fuller classrooms and housing crisis, which includes $110 million to tackle record-high emergency department ramping, $135m for new schools and upgrades and $226m for social and affordable housing at a time when 21,060 are on the public housing waitlist.
Those numbers form part of the $4.3b earmarked for health ($1.4b), housing ($1.4b) and education $1.5b) in this year's budget.
WA's population peaked at 3.4 per cent in September 2023, contributing to a surge of 300,000 new West Australians over the past five years.
Services have largely failed to keep pace with the growth, despite WA's seven consecutive operating surpluses.
Perth currently has a shortfall of 7700 rental homes, according to Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, emergency department ramping had its worst May ever last month and despite completing 20,000 homes in 2024 it still fell 4000 homes short of the National Housing Accord target.
Treasury forecasts show WA's population growth has slowed to 1.9 per cent in 2024-25 and drop further to 1.8 per cent in 2025-26 and then 1.7 per cent for two years before falling to 1.6 per cent in 2028-29.
Handing down the 2025-26 budget, Treasurer Rita Saffioti said the State's economy 'has attracted more people to move to Western Australia than ever before.'
'While this population growth is a vote of confidence in our State, it has also increased demand for services and housing,' she said. 'This budget responds to that demand.'
Among the new schools planning, $400,000 has been allocated for work on a previously-flagged new primary school in Mount Lawley and a proposed new secondary school in Dawesville. The government will also spend $28m to expand the school breakfast program and $10m for school canteens to upgrade or purchase equipment and hire staff.
The emergency departments of St John of God Midland and Royal Perth Hospital are both being expanded, with $5m earmarked for each respectively in 2025-26. The growing population in the Swan and Hills catchment area is expected to see numbers at Midland emergency jump by 38 per cent by 2031-32.
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ABC News
8 hours ago
- ABC News
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That backing from the private sector will be critical to making the government's vision a reality — because without businesses changing where and how they spend money, the shape of the economy won't change. Saffioti used an address to a business breakfast yesterday to encourage them to back the government's plans. "We're here, ready to work with industry, making sure we can deliver on our commitments," she said. Asked later in the day what would happen if businesses didn't change their spending, the treasurer said the combination of providing initial infrastructure and capital with long-term government purchase agreements was attractive to industry. "I think there's a lot of excitement, and just speaking to a few people today, I think that there's a real willingness," she said. Despite the broad support, Ms Winzar and Professor da Silva Rossa questioned the government's focus on manufacturing as a priority area, beyond a few niche industries. 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Sky News AU
13 hours ago
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News.com.au
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Australian Property Development Association president Alex Huang said Victoria had become 'probably one of the worst places that a developer can pick to launch a project'. Over the past year he said he was hearing of contracts being torn up 'more and more frequently', estimating 100s of would have been rescinded, though he was optimistic falling interest rates would help to improve the situation for the sector in the year ahead.
