When Premier Mike Baird was first warned of $80 billion in federal cuts to NSW schools and hospitals over the next decade, he came out swinging, calling the planned savings measures a "kick in the guts".
Yet one year on, when he faced confirmation of those razor cuts in Joe Hockey's Tuesday night budget, the NSW premier was content to bite his tongue.
Mr Baird has promised he will lobby the commonwealth to restore billions in health and education funding when he attends the COAG leaders' retreat in July.
But Opposition Leader Luke Foley says that will be too little, too late.
"The prime minister knows the NSW premier's letting him off the hook here," the NSW Labor leader told parliament on Wednesday.
"Why's he going to make a concession? Why's he going to back down in July?"
Mr Hockey's second federal budget promised millions in immediate tax deductions for small businesses and a 1.5 per cent corporate tax cut, and locked in $5.6 billion in funding to complete the Pacific Highway duplication project by the end of the decade.
It also confirmed up to $3.5 billion for the WestConnex road project in Sydney, $2.9 billion for road links around the future Badgery's Creek airport in western Sydney, and kept $405 million on the table for NorthConnex.
But there was no reprieve from flagged cuts to health and education spending.
Mr Foley wants the state government to release treasury modelling outlining the effect of Tuesday's budget on NSW.
"The savage cuts we saw foreshadowed in last year's budget are now built into these budget papers," he told reporters.
"They will inevitably lead to fewer hospital beds in NSW and longer waiting times for elective surgery, and they'll mean there's less money to replace ageing demountables in our schools with permanent classrooms."
Mr Baird agreed that "the issue is not resolved" and promised not to stand back and accept the drastically lowered commonwealth spending.
"We will ensure that we do the right thing by the people of this state," Mr Baird said.
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