WA Budget 2025: Rita Saffioti is betting WA’s future on a budget that delivers the essentials, pays later

Rita Saffioti promised a Budget that was not sexy but delivers the essentials.

That no longer includes power bill relief for multi-millionaires who don’t need it.

The cost-of-living crisis is over for some, if not all.

But record population growth means the hospital and housing crisis is not yet abating.

Labor has included funding to get started on planning for upgrades of Royal Perth Hospital and St John of God Midland, but neither project has a completion date within sight.

There is extra money for housing construction, with the Treasurer rightly calling housing costs a major factor in cost-of-living.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day — that solution would take time to rein in rental prices.

The Budget details an ambitious infrastructure program to realise Roger Cook’s vision of turning WA into a renewable energy powerhouse, but the benefits of that program will take years to materialise.

This is a budget for the future, possible because of an emphatic election victory.

The Government is well aware of monsters lurking under the cover of this Budget though.

The green-eyed monster of interstate Premiers and Treasurers coming for WA’s GST.

Unpredictable cartoon-style monsters waging trade wars and real wars overseas.

But there’s also a monster of Labor’s own making.

The debt monster that joined Rita Saffioti on the campaign trail in opposition pre-2017 might be hidden in her cupboard – but it certainly isn’t retired.

Net debt was forecast to reach $36 billion when she accused the Barnett Government spending “every red cent” to feed an “insatiable” debt monster.

Now it is expected to climb to $42 billion plus in 2028-29.

This might be necessary to deliver the essentials of health, housing and education, perhaps, however it puts the Government’s luxury items under scrutiny.

Predicted expenses growth of 7.7 per cent increased to 10.6 per cent in 2024-25, making the forecast of negative 5.9 per cent growth in 2026-27 hard to believe.

With the election now over, Ms Saffioti has four years to solve that one.

Her future – and WA’s – depend on it.