Cost of Living

1.1. Prices are moving faster than pay

Cost of living is not one bill. It is the compound effect of a dozen bills that each rise a little faster than the income paying them — and in New South Wales, several of those bills are set, taxed or regulated by the State itself. Start with the arithmetic.

· Sydney recorded annual inflation of 4.2 per cent in the twelve months to May 2026, above the 4.0 per cent weighted average of the eight capital cities and third-highest of the capitals after Hobart and Adelaide[i]

· The NSW Wage Price Index — total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses — rose 3.2 per cent over the year to the March quarter 2026[ii]

· The two series cover different reference periods and different geographies, so the comparison is indicative rather than exact — but the direction is unambiguous, and it has been the direction for several years

The lived version of that gap is documented. NCOSS research published in June 2026 found that, among NSW households already in poverty, 53 per cent are in extreme housing stress — a 33 per cent increase since 2023 — 63 per cent cannot always pay their utility bills on time, up from 50 per cent in 2023, and 47 per cent have regular paid work[iii]. Separately, research by Impact Economics and Policy for NCOSS estimated that child poverty costs New South Wales around $60 billion a year, or 7.8 per cent of Gross State Product, with 15.5 per cent of NSW children living in poverty[iv].

A job is no longer a guarantee against poverty in this State. That is the fact every cost-of-living policy has to answer.

1.2. Tolls have become a second utility bill

The Independent Toll Review led by Professor Allan Fels AO and Dr David Cousins AM — commissioned by NSW Treasury and reporting in July 2024 as Motorists First — put numbers to what Sydney drivers already knew.

· Sydney motorists currently spend about $2.5 billion a year on tolls[v]

· NSW Treasury data cited by the Review estimated likely future toll collections to 2060, when the last concession expires, at $123 billion in today's dollars on conservative assumptions — over half of it from the WestConnex concessions[v]

· Finding 8 of the Review is blunt: "The financial impact of tolls is greatest in Western Sydney"[v]

· A NSW Department of Customer Service survey reported by the Review found Blacktown residents who used toll roads at least monthly spent $95.90 a month on average, against a Greater Sydney average of $60.70[v]

· Survey research conducted for the Review found 87 per cent of Sydney residents thought tolls were too high and 73 per cent thought they were unfair[v]

The pricing is not merely high; it is contractually locked. On WestConnex, tolls escalate by the greater of 4 per cent a year or CPI, meaning that in some years they have grown ahead of inflation. More than half the private concessions carry a minimum rate of increase regardless of inflation — tolls on NorthConnex, the Hills M2 and the Eastern Distributor rise by a minimum of 1 per cent each quarter — and on seven private motorways the tolls cannot go down at all[v]. The Review's Finding 6 states it plainly: "Tolls are too rigid and are locked-in for decades without options for review"[v].

The transparency record is no better. A NSW Legislative Council inquiry in 2022 found that NSW drivers make more than one million toll trips a day, raising more than $2 billion in total revenue every year, and that NSW Treasury's decision to withhold WestConnex contract details and traffic data from public release until 2060 was "an abuse of executive power"[vi].

We should also be accurate about where the Review landed on the operator. It found that Transurban has a dominant market share and has acquired an ownership stake in every privately operated Sydney toll road, and that it paid over $6.5 billion in dividends to shareholders across five financial years — but it also found that "available evidence suggests that Transurban's profitability has not been excessive in recent years", while separately concluding that "the level of tolls appears to be higher than necessary and desirable"[v].

The problem is not one company's margin. It is a pricing structure nobody would design on purpose, sold to motorists one deal at a time.

1.3. Toll relief is generous in the wrong direction

Toll relief is real money in real household budgets, and we should not pretend otherwise. From 6 July 2026 the NSW weekly toll cap fell from $60 to $50, with rebates payable on toll spend between $50 and $400 a week, up to $350 a week per tag or plate and $5,000 a year per customer[vii]. For a Western Sydney commuter that is a meaningful sum.

But the Review the State itself commissioned reached an uncomfortable conclusion about the design:

· Finding 15: "Toll reform is preferable to toll relief. The current toll relief schemes are inadequately targeted and underutilised, in part due to overly complex administration"[v]

· Finding 16: concessionaires are "an unintended beneficiary of the current approach to toll relief", because relief induces demand and lifts operator revenue[v]

· More than $1 billion was budgeted for relief schemes introduced in 2022 and 2023 alone, and Transport for NSW estimated that 35 per cent of trips eligible for the M5 Cashback scheme would not be claimed[v]

· Take-up skews upwards: more than 50 per cent of drivers from households earning $250,000 or more a year had obtained or planned to obtain toll relief, against less than 40 per cent of drivers from households earning under $80,000[v]

· The Review estimated that if toll relief were removed, up to around $250 million a year could instead be redirected into reducing tolls — a drop in average tolls of around 10 per cent[v]

Recommendation 8 of the Review pointed in the opposite direction to current policy. It suggested the Government consider increasing the cap, for example to $70, "to ease the pressure on government finances", and move over time towards means testing in line with the Review's toll relief principles[v]. The cap was instead cut to $50, and it remains untargeted by income — eligibility turns on holding a personal toll account and a privately registered vehicle, not on what a household earns[vii].

Relief you have to claim is relief the busiest and least confident households miss. A price you never have to claim against is better policy.

1.4. The tax hidden inside your insurance bill

New South Wales is the last mainland Australian state to fund its emergency services through a levy on insurance policies[viii]. That is not an accounting curiosity. It is a line item inside home, contents, business and vehicle policies across the State.

· NSW Treasury calculates that the Emergency Services Levy has added an average of 18 per cent to the cost of residential property insurance since 2017-18, and 34 per cent for non-residential property, once the flow-on GST and stamp duty charged on top of the levy are counted[viii]

· NSW home insurance premiums rose 48 per cent between 2017-18 and 2024-25 — nearly double the 25 per cent rise in the Consumer Price Index over the same period, on Treasury's calculation from ABS data[viii]

· The average total ESL cost carried by an insured NSW residential property was $283 in 2023-24, with a median of $240 and a 90th percentile of $491; insured industrial properties averaged $4,410[viii]

· The burden bears little relationship to capacity to pay: among properties around the $489,000 median residential land value, 80 per cent of owners paid somewhere between $104 and $459[viii]

· The emergency services funding target reached $1,890 million in 2025-26, an average increase of 8 per cent a year since 2017-18, of which insurance policyholders carry 73.7 per cent, councils 11.7 per cent and the State Government 14.6 per cent[viii]

· Revenue NSW has gazetted an insurance industry contribution target of $1,511,742,400 for 2026-27[ix]

The consumer effect shows up in independent modelling. The Actuaries Institute estimated that, as at March 2024, the average NSW home insurance premium was $2,946, of which $855 was stamp duty, levies and GST — against $360 of an average $2,075 premium in Victoria[x]. Nationally, it found that 15 per cent of Australian households — 1.61 million — were in home insurance affordability stress, defined as premiums costing more than four weeks of gross household income, a 30 per cent increase in a single year, with New South Wales among the three worst-affected states[x].

Compulsory motor insurance tells a more mixed story, and we should report it as such. The Legislative Council's 2025 review of the CTP scheme recorded an average green slip premium of $487 in 2024 and a fall from 37 per cent of average weekly earnings in 2017 to 23 per cent as at 30 June 2025 — while also hearing evidence from the Insurance Council of Australia that average premiums rose from $510 in 2024 to $557 in 2025[xi]. These are different measures from different witnesses and should not be blended into a single trend.

A levy that only insured households pay is a tax on doing the responsible thing.

1.5. Rents outrun wages — and regional New South Wales is worse

· The median weekly rent on new bonds lodged in Greater Sydney was $780 in the March 2026 quarter, up 4.0 per cent on a year earlier; in the rest of NSW it was $530, up 6.0 per cent, with the statewide median at $720[xii]

· Rents are rising fastest outside Sydney's inner city: Wollongong new-bond rents rose 7.69 per cent and Newcastle 6.67 per cent over the year to March 2026, against 4.12 per cent in Sydney's inner ring, which remains the dearest at $885[xii]

· These are rents on newly-signed leases lodged with the Rental Bond Board, not rents paid by continuing tenants — which is why the series turns faster than the CPI rents measure, and why it is the number that hits a household when a lease ends[xii]

The Rental Affordability Index 2025, published by SGS Economics and Planning with National Shelter and Housing All Australians, scored Greater Sydney at 100 — the boundary of "unaffordable" — with the average renting household spending 30 per cent of its income on rent, and a single person on benefits facing rents worth 131 per cent of income[xiii]. Regional NSW scored 99, having fallen 15 points since 2015 against Greater Sydney's 3-point fall, so that regional New South Wales — more affordable than Sydney throughout the 2010s — is now less affordable than the metropolitan area[xiii].

"Move somewhere cheaper" stopped being advice in this State some years ago.

1.6. The bills the State itself sets

Some household costs are genuinely beyond a State parliament. Others are set, capped or determined here — by IPART, by ministers, or by councils operating under State rules. Those are the ones we should be judged on.

Water first. Under IPART's determination for Sydney Water, the typical average household bill for water and wastewater rose by $168, or 13.8 per cent, from $1,220 in 2024-25 to $1,388 in 2025-26, and is projected to reach about $1,695 by 2029-30 — $84 lower in 2025-26, and $218 lower by 2029-30, than Sydney Water had proposed[xiv]. From 1 July 2026 the quarterly water service charge falls 10 per cent to $26.65, but the wastewater service charge rises 9 per cent to $189.88 and water usage rises 8 per cent to $3.41 a kilolitre — so the net effect on any given household depends on how much it uses[xv].

Then council rates. IPART sets a separate rate peg for each of the State's 128 local government areas. For 2026-27, core rate pegs range from 2.5 to 4.2 per cent, and with population growth factors applied to 83 councils, total rate pegs range from 2.7 to 5.7 per cent[xvi]. The peg caps a council's general income — it does not cap any individual rates notice, and councils may apply separately to IPART for special variations above it.

· The Auditor-General reported in January 2026 that 17 NSW councils recorded operating losses in the year to 30 June 2025 and 19 lacked enough unrestricted cash to cover three months of general expenses, with 11 councils flagged as carrying heightened financial sustainability risk[xvii]

· Special variations can be very large. In two councils audited in June 2026, IPART had approved cumulative increases of 31.29 per cent at Port Stephens and 58.8 per cent at Armidale Regional across the three years to 2025-26 — case studies rather than state averages, but a useful reminder of what the "peg" does not cap[xviii]

Then fares. IPART set maximum Opal fares for 1 January 2025 to 30 June 2028 at a 2 per cent average real increase, with all maximum fares also rising by CPI on 1 July in each year of the determination; IPART estimates fare revenue recovers around 25 per cent of the operating costs of the Opal network[xix]. IPART sets only the maximums — actual fares, caps, concessions and discounts are decisions of government. The weekly Opal cap has not changed since it was set at $50 in 2019, down from $63 in 2018[xix].

And fares are not the whole transport bill in the parts of Sydney with the fewest alternatives. A Legislative Council inquiry into Western Sydney public transport found there is "an inequitable provision of transport options and infrastructure in Western Sydney", and heard evidence from Blacktown City Council that a bus-rail-bus journey could attract three separate fares "which could exceed $15 per trip, $30 per day or $600 per month"[xx].

If a household cannot switch supplier, the price is a political decision — and it should be defended like one.

1.7. Energy: a rebate cliff, and what it hides

Electricity costs rose 21.1 per cent nationally in the twelve months to May 2026 — but the ABS is explicit that the annual rise is primarily related to the ending of Commonwealth and State Government electricity rebates, and that excluding the impact of those rebates electricity prices rose 3.9 per cent over the same period[i]. Both numbers belong in the same sentence. Quoting either alone is misleading.

Underlying prices have in fact eased. The Australian Energy Regulator's final Default Market Offer for 2026-27, effective 1 July 2026, cut NSW residential standing-offer prices by between 3.4 per cent ($66) and 5.0 per cent ($137) depending on distribution zone, with NSW small businesses recording the largest fall of any region; the AER attributes the reductions primarily to lower wholesale electricity costs, including reduced volatility and higher output from renewable generation and battery storage, which more than offset rising network costs[xxi].

· The Default Market Offer is set by a Commonwealth regulator, not the NSW Government, and it is a safety-net reference price for standing offers — most customers are on market offers and pay less[xxi]

· A rebate that ends produces a price shock even when the underlying price is falling. Rebates are useful in an emergency and corrosive as a substitute for structure

Rebates flatter the government that announces them and punish the household that outlives them.

2.1. Our test: prices that stay down

Every cost-of-living announcement in this State should have to pass three questions. Does it lower the price, or does it pay part of the price for you? Does it survive the next budget? And does it reach the household that has no capacity to chase it? Rebates and one-off cheques fail at least two of those tests — they arrive after the price has already risen, they stop when the budget tightens, and they are claimed most reliably by the people best placed to claim them. We support relief where households need it now, and we support being honest that it is temporary. But the durable levers are structural: the taxes, contracts, market rules and planning laws that sit inside the bills themselves. Those are slower, less visible and less rewarding at an election, which is precisely why they go undone.

A discount is something a government gives you. A lower price is something it fixes.

2.2. Finish the toll reform the State has already paid for

The Fels–Cousins review delivered 16 findings and 42 recommendations in July 2024[v]. Its central architecture is not a slogan, it is a design — and implementation since then has been partial. We would not claim otherwise, and we would support seeing it through:

· Recommendation 2 — network tolling in place of Sydney's road-by-road patchwork[v]

· Recommendation 3 — declining distance-based tolls as the foundation of network tolling, so the households driving furthest are not punished hardest[v]

· A State-owned entity, NSW Motorways, to take back control of toll setting, with the government's role in toll decision-making overseen by IPART[v]

· Recommendation 27 — legislating so government can make timely and final toll decisions where in-principle agreement with concessionaires is not reached, backed by a Revenue Adjustment Mechanism[v]

· Recommendation 4 — actively pursuing ways to reduce the level of tolls, with funding sources found from within the tolling system[v]

The Review modelled its own scenarios: for all vehicles, average tolls fall 19 per cent under a network toll restructure and 42 per cent under restructure plus reduction, measured against the status quo[v]. Those are modelled outcomes for a 2026 base year, not implemented policy, and the Review is candid that neither network toll scenario is "the final or optimal solution"[v]. Part of the gain also comes from spreading tolls across more trips, including two-way tolling on the Harbour crossings — which means some routes would pay more. That trade-off should be argued in public, not buried.

We would also finish what the 2022 Legislative Council inquiry started on transparency. Contract terms, traffic forecasts and amendments should not be commercial-in-confidence until 2060, and a parliamentary finding that withholding them was "an abuse of executive power" should not simply be left sitting on the record[vi].

Motorists are paying these contracts until 2060. They are entitled to read them before then.

2.3. Toll relief that reaches the people who need it

We would not strip toll relief away while the underlying prices remain what they are. We would redesign it against the Review's own principles:

· Target relief by household means rather than by whether someone holds a personal toll account — the Review found that take-up of relief rises with income[v]

· Weight relief towards motorists without viable alternative travel options, consistent with the Review's toll relief principles[v]

· Design out the administrative complexity that leaves relief unclaimed — Transport for NSW estimated 35 per cent of eligible M5 Cashback trips would go unclaimed[v]

· Support an independent tolling customer ombudsman with a legislative basis, as the Legislative Council recommended in 2022 on the model of the Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW, together with a mandatory industry-wide code of practice covering hardship, mental illness and domestic and family violence[vi]

· Cut toll administration fees to $1.10 for a first notice and $2.20 for a second, and make aggregated or consolidated toll notices compulsory, as that inquiry recommended[vi]

· Exempt buses from tolls when they are carrying passengers, as that inquiry also recommended[vi]

One caution is worth stating even though it cuts against the politics. The Committee for Sydney argues that reducing tolls alone simply shifts the cost of driving "from people's pockets to people's time" through induced congestion, and that equitable road user pricing — tied to public transport accessibility, with exemptions for groups such as carers and tradespeople — is the better instrument[xxii]. That is an advocacy position rather than a settled finding, but it is the right warning: toll reform has to arrive alongside genuine public transport alternatives, not instead of them.

Relief should follow need, not paperwork.

2.4. Take the levy off the insurance bill

We support abolishing the insurance-based Emergency Services Levy and replacing it with a broad-based property levy. NSW Treasury estimates the swap would, over time, add around $1.8 billion to the NSW economy in today's terms — the equivalent of increasing annual household incomes by around $300 on average[viii].

This is a tax swap, not a tax cut, and we would say so plainly:

· Treasury's modelling indicates around 55 per cent of insured NSW properties would have paid less under a replacement levy — which necessarily means around 45 per cent would have paid more[viii]

· Insured residential owners would have saved an average of $65 a year, and owners outside Greater Sydney were around twice as likely to have paid less[viii]

· A property-based levy reaches owners who currently pay nothing because they carry no insurance. That is the point of the reform, and also its hardest political fact

· Each of Treasury's options assumes a $60 pensioner discount, estimated to cost $24.8 million on 2023-24 data. Concessions and hardship provisions belong in the legislation, not in a media release[viii]

· Under a scenario applying projected 2065-66 climate conditions to today's households — a counterfactual, not a forecast of today — Treasury estimates that removing the levy would cut average residential premiums by around 15 per cent and reduce the number of NSW households in severe insurance affordability stress by around 125,000, more than 80 per cent of them in the lowest income quintile[viii]

We would also insist the transition is policed. Parliament passed the Emergency Services Levy Insurance Monitor Act 2024, appointing IPART as Insurance Monitor from June 2024 with powers to compel information from insurers, assess whether they over-collect the levy, accept undertakings to refund customers and take enforcement action against price exploitation and misleading representations[xxiii]. A levy removed at the wholesale end and quietly retained at the retail end would be the worst of both worlds. The Legislative Assembly Select Committee on Emergency Services Funding Reform is examining the replacement models now, with submissions having closed on 19 June 2026[xxiv]. We support that work concluding in legislation with a stated transition timetable, rather than another round of consultation.

The State should fund its fire brigades. It should not fund them out of the one bill that only the prudent pay.

2.5. Build the homes that bring the rent down

The most powerful cost-of-living lever a State parliament holds is the planning system, and it is the one most consistently spent on everything except affordability.

· Grattan Institute analysis finds that about 80 per cent of all residential land within 30 kilometres of the centre of Sydney is zoned for housing of three storeys or fewer[xxv]

· Its modelling — national, over a decade, and under a full-reform scenario — estimates that allowing three-storey townhouses and apartments across capital cities could lift construction by up to 67,000 homes a year, cut rents by 12 per cent and take more than $100,000 off the cost of the median-priced home[xxv]

· We support "deemed-to-comply" approval pathways near transit hubs and centres, so that meeting the rules produces an approval rather than a negotiation[xxv]

· We support removing minimum car-parking requirements. Grattan estimates that meeting the typical requirement adds about $70,000 to the construction cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Sydney, that off-street parking accounts for 13 per cent of apartment floor space in Sydney and Melbourne, and that as much as 40 per cent of it sits vacant each night — while several inner Sydney councils, including the City of Sydney, Parramatta, Inner West and North Sydney, already set maximums instead of minimums[xxvi]

These are modelled construction-cost and rent effects, not guarantees, and we would not present them as promises. But they are close to the only measures on the table that lower housing costs without a subsidy attached.

You cannot rebate your way out of a shortage.

2.6. Make the State's own prices defensible

Where government sets the price, government owns the outcome.

· Fares: the weekly Opal cap has been frozen at $50 since 2019 while maximum fares rise by CPI every July[xix]. We support keeping the cap meaningful in real terms, and publishing each year what maintaining it costs — rather than letting it erode silently

· We support the Western Sydney inquiry's finding of inequitable transport provision being answered in the fare structure as well as in infrastructure, so that a single multi-modal journey does not charge a household three times[xx]

· Water: IPART's determination process visibly worked, leaving the typical bill $84 below Sydney Water's proposal in 2025-26 and $218 below it by 2029-30[xiv]. We support that scrutiny being strengthened rather than softened, and bill impacts being published in dollars per typical household, not only in percentages

· Rates: we would not pretend the rate peg is costless. A Legislative Council inquiry concluded that the peg "has not kept pace with the level of income councils require" and recommended redesigning the local government rating system, including examining capital improved value in place of unimproved land value[xxvii], while the Auditor-General has documented councils in genuine financial distress[xvii]. Any redesign must be argued honestly: shifting the rating base redistributes who pays, it does not by itself reduce anyone's bill

· We support the special variation process being made faster and less resource-intensive, as that inquiry recommended[xxvii], with ratepayers told plainly what a variation will cost them across its whole term rather than one year at a time

Households can accept a price they can see justified. They will never accept one that nobody will explain.

2.7. Energy: say plainly what a State can and cannot do

The Default Market Offer is a Commonwealth instrument. The NSW Government does not set it, and any state politician claiming credit or assigning blame for it is misleading you[xxi]. What New South Wales does control is generation and network policy, the concession framework, and the honesty with which relief is described.

· We support energy concessions being permanent, indexed and applied automatically where eligibility is already known to government, rather than annual announcements that households must find and claim

· We support every rebate carrying its end date at the moment it is announced, so that no household is ambushed by a 21 per cent headline that is mostly a rebate expiring[i]

· We support continued investment in the generation and storage that the AER identifies as driving the 2026-27 reduction in wholesale costs[xxi]

Tell people the truth about a bill and they can plan. Tell them a rebate is a price cut and they cannot.

2.8. Groceries, childcare and the honest limits of a State parliament

Some of the largest items in a household budget are not ours to legislate. We would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

Groceries. The ACCC's supermarkets inquiry found that Australia's supermarket industry is highly concentrated with an oligopoly structure, that ALDI, Coles and Woolworths increased their average product margins over the last five financial years, and that they appear among the most profitable supermarket businesses globally[xxviii]. Its Recommendation 3 is one New South Wales can act on directly: all levels of government should simplify, streamline and harmonise planning and zoning laws, because limited availability of suitable retail sites restricts supply and deters entry or expansion[xxviii].

· We support planning reform aimed squarely at letting a competitor open near an incumbent

· We support transparency about land held for future retail development, given the inquiry's observation that Coles and Woolworths frequently purchase and hold land for future development[xxviii]

Childcare. New South Wales controls preschool funding, regulation and land, not the subsidy. A Legislative Council inquiry reported in May 2026 with 35 recommendations, including that the NSW Government increase transparency about the proportion of fees and government subsidies that providers pay in rent, and that it call on the Australian Government to fully investigate alternative funding models such as fee caps and profit caps[xxix]. The Child Care Subsidy itself is a Commonwealth payment: the Productivity Commission recommended lifting it to 100 per cent of the hourly rate cap for families earning up to $80,000 and abolishing the activity test, at a cost of about $17.4 billion a year[xxx].

· We support that transparency requirement — parents are entitled to know how much of their fee is rent[xxix]

· We support New South Wales advocating for the Commonwealth reforms it cannot legislate itself, and being explicit about which is which

The Australian Democrats have never promised what we cannot deliver. On cost of living that discipline matters more, not less — because every household in New South Wales has already been promised relief by somebody.

Every figure on this page comes from a published source — a regulator's determination, a government paper, a parliamentary inquiry or an independent report. They are listed below so you can check our work, which is the same standard we ask of government.

[i] Australian Bureau of Statistics: Consumer Price Index, Australia — monthly indicator, May 2026, released 24 June 2026 (2026)

[ii] Australian Bureau of Statistics: Wage Price Index, Australia — March quarter 2026, total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses, released 13 May 2026 (2026)

[iii] NSW Council of Social Service: The Affordability Crisis — the new face of poverty in NSW, drawing on the NCOSS Voices of Poverty Research (2026)

[iv] Impact Economics and Policy for the NSW Council of Social Service: Lasting Impacts — the economic cost of child poverty in NSW (2024, published 2025)

[v] NSW Treasury (Independent Toll Review, Professor Allan Fels AO and Dr David Cousins AM): Motorists First — Independent Toll Review Final Report, released 16 July 2024, including Findings 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15 and 16 and Recommendations 2, 3, 4, 8 and 27 (2024)

[vi] NSW Legislative Council, Portfolio Committee No. 6 – Transport: Road tolling regimes, Report 16, Findings 1–3 and Recommendations 4, 8, 9 and 10 (2022)

[vii] Service NSW: Toll relief — claim the toll relief rebate, $50 weekly cap effective 6 July 2026 (2026)

[viii] NSW Treasury: Emergency services funding reform — options paper, April 2026, tabled to the Legislative Assembly Select Committee on Emergency Services Funding Reform (2026)

[ix] Revenue NSW: Emergency services levy — gazetted insurance industry contribution target for 2026-27 (2026)

[x] Actuaries Institute: Home Insurance Affordability and Home Loans at Risk, August 2024 (2024)

[xi] NSW Legislative Council, Standing Committee on Law and Justice: 2025 Review of the Compulsory Third Party insurance scheme, Report 87, tabled 23 April 2026 (2026)

[xii] NSW Department of Communities and Justice: Rent and Sales Report NSW — rent tables, March 2026 quarter, median weekly rent for new bonds (2026)

[xiii] SGS Economics and Planning, National Shelter and Housing All Australians: Rental Affordability Index 2025, New South Wales chapter, June quarter 2025 data (2025)

[xiv] IPART: Final Report — Sydney Water prices 2025-2030, September 2025, and accompanying media release of 23 September 2025 (2025)

[xv] Sydney Water: Our prices for 2025–30 — residential charges from 1 July 2026, as determined by IPART (2026)

[xvi] IPART: Information Paper — rate pegs for NSW councils for 2026-27, 30 September 2025 (2025)

[xvii] Audit Office of New South Wales: Local government 2025, tabled 28 January 2026, covering audits for the year ended 30 June 2025 (2026)

[xviii] Audit Office of New South Wales: Long-term financial planning in local government, tabled 18 June 2026 (2026)

[xix] IPART: Final Report — Maximum Opal fares 2025-2028, October 2024 (2024)

[xx] NSW Legislative Council, Portfolio Committee No. 6 – Transport and the Arts: Current and future public transport needs in Western Sydney, Report 21, Finding 1 and submission evidence of Blacktown City Council (2024)

[xxi] Australian Energy Regulator: Final determination — Default Market Offer 2026-27 (DMO 8), May 2026, effective 1 July 2026 (2026)

[xxii] Committee for Sydney: NSW Toll Review — reducing tolls will simply shift the cost of driving from people's pockets to people's time, 3 August 2023 (2023)

[xxiii] Emergency Services Levy Insurance Monitor Act 2024 (NSW), appointing IPART as Insurance Monitor from June 2024; functions and powers as described in NSW Treasury's emergency services funding reform options paper (2024–2026)

[xxiv] Parliament of New South Wales, Legislative Assembly Select Committee on Emergency Services Funding Reform: inquiry into NSW emergency services funding reform replacement levy model options, referred 25 March 2026, submissions closed 19 June 2026 (2026)

[xxv] Grattan Institute: More homes, better cities — letting more people live where they want, 5 November 2025 (2025)

[xxvi] Grattan Institute: Wasted space — axe car-parking rules to ease the housing crisis, 19 May 2026 (2026)

[xxvii] NSW Legislative Council, Standing Committee on State Development: Ability of local governments to fund infrastructure and services, Report 52, Recommendations 2 and 3, tabled 29 November 2024 (2024)

[xxviii] Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: Supermarkets inquiry — February 2025 final report, including Recommendation 3 (2025)

[xxix] NSW Legislative Council, Portfolio Committee No. 3 – Education: Early childhood education and care sector in New South Wales, Report 55, Recommendations 7 and 8, tabled 20 May 2026 (2026)

[xxx] Productivity Commission: A path to universal early childhood education and care — inquiry report, released 18 September 2024 (2024)