The NSW government will pocket a $2.5 billion surplus next financial year rather than spend it on people facing domestic violence or struggling with a disability, the state's peak welfare body says.
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Delivering the government's first budget since it was returned to power, Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian boasted of the state's healthy balance sheet and said her government would be remembered as one that "took care of the most vulnerable".
But Council of Social Service of NSW chief executive Tracy Howe said some of those most in need had been overlooked, adding rates of domestic and family violence were at a crisis point and an urgent, co-ordinated response was required.
Funding for disability advocacy services, which were playing a critical role in the transition to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, was not secured past 2016 and "there has never been a worse time for these services to be operating under a cloud of uncertainty", she said.
Ms Howe praised the government for "great strides" by including an extra 1000 social housing dwellings and more living expense rebates for those experiencing poverty and disadvantage.
Labor leader Luke Foley said the government's surplus was "built solely on the rivers of gold" from Sydney home buyers paying stamp duty.
"When the housing market in Sydney comes off the boil, as it will, a deep deficit will follow," he said.
Mr Foley said foregone dividends from state-owned electricity businesses, which the government intends to privatise, and federal cuts to health and education meant "the prospects for the state's finances are not good".
The Independent Commission Against Corruption has been allocated $24.2 million next financial year, despite spending $25.7 million this financial year, including on a political donation inquiry that rocked the Liberal Party.
A spokesman for Premier Mike Baird said the difference was largely due to the ICAC's recently lowered rent costs, adding relocation costs and a higher workload supplement were factored into the last budget.
But Labor Attorney-General spokesman Paul Lynch said the cut was "entirely inappropriate".
Real Estate Institute of NSW president Malcolm Gunning said the government had become "greedy" and should have reinstated first home buyer grants on existing properties and cut stamp duty rates.
Developer lobby Urban Taskforce praised the government's investment in public transport and infrastructure. "This is a good budget that sets in place a program of urban infrastructure projects that will support a more dense cosmopolitan lifestyle," chief executive Chris Johnson said.
