No major shocks in the New South Wales Budget in Australia

There were few major surprises in the 2025/26 New South Wales Budget which does little to shake the near-term outlook for building and civil engineering.

• On the housing front, the budget mainly re-iterated or tweaked existing programs including the indefinite extension of build-to-rent land tax concessions, and further funding for expedited planning schemes. The main new announcements were the Pre-Sale Finance Guarantee and works-in-kind infrastructure delivery. Their impact will likely relate more to project timing than increased supply.

• For public non-residential building, the focus was largely on financing existing works with some receiving additional funding, pointing to continued project valuation overruns. There were a handful of new major projects revealed, including the Thornton High School upgrade in the Hunter Valley and a new Statewide Pathology Hub at the Westmead Hospital Precinct. There were also some efforts to reduce roadblocks on private activity. A new Investment Delivery Authority was announced to expedite major projects, such as data centres for which Sydney is the epicentre. This may provide modest upside for commercial & industrial building long term, but we are wary it gains traction given other sectoral challenges (e.g. utility supply for data centres).