There was not a lot of cheer in the media reporting ahead of the 2025/6 Victorian budget released on Tuesday. Debt and deficits dominated the coverage.

All eyes turned to new treasurer, Jaclyn Symes, to see if in her first budget the Labor government was finally delivering some financial discipline.

That theme flowed into the press conference during the budget lockup, when journalists got to grill the treasurer about the budget papers. Symes copped a pasting. Journalists were clearly unhappy with what they had read and more unhappy about what they heard.

Yes, the operating side of the budget is projected to be back to a wafer thin A$600 million surplus. But that is almost $1 billion less than was promised when Symes delivered a budget update last December.

And all that infrastructure is to paid for by more borrowings, taking net debt to $167 billion, $10 billion more than it was last year.

And that was despite the government benefiting from a whopping $3.5 billion in GST grants from the Commonwealth, over $1 billion more than the previous year.

And it was despite a new fire and emergency services levy that is set to deliver an extra $600 million.

And it was also despite a 22% increase in fees........

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