NSW government obsessed with selling: ALP

NSW Labor leader Luke Foley says his government would halt privatisation of government assets if elected.

NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley.

NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley has promised to end state asset sales in his budget reply speech. (AAP)

The NSW Opposition leader has taken aim at the government's "ideological obsession with privatisation" in a budget reply that also unveiled a radical policy to address the state's meth epidemic.

Two days after the government announced a budget surplus of $3.9 billion, Luke Foley promised a Labor government would end "dodgy" privatisation of government assets in his speech to parliament on Thursday.

"Today I announce Labor's privatisation pledge, a commitment to the people of this state that we will call a halt to this destructive privatisation scam," he said.

Mr Foley also announced that if Labor won next year's election it would open six meth clinics across NSW and force the worst addicts to undergo "mandatory" detoxification and rehabilitation.

Four of the six facilities would be in regional NSW, Mr Foley said, with a total of 150 beds treating up to 1300 addicts a year.

"This is a health-based therapeutic approach and not a punitive response to individual ice addicts," the Labor leader said.

"It protects the community and provides individual addicts with the intensive treatment they need to recover from their addiction."

Mr Foley said the Berejiklian government had the wrong priorities and reiterated his earlier commitment to air condition every public school in NSW.

The government committed $500 million to air conditioning some 1000 schools in Tuesday's budget.

But Mr Foley said he would find a further $300 million to extend the program to all schools, with funding to come from the government's controversial $2.2 billion stadiums spend.

"Labor will not support splurging $2.2 billion on Sydney stadiums when 120,000 kids are being taught in demountable classrooms," he said.

Mr Foley said Treasurer Dominic Perrottet's second budget - the last before the March 2019 election - was drawn up for "desperate political gain".


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Source: AAP


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