The Sydney project costs that hang over the state’s finances like a cloud

The Minns government pulled the easiest levers it could to ease financial pressures on households in the run-up to the state election next March.

A freeze on Opal fares, temporary cuts to vehicle regos and a 12-month reduction of the weekly toll cap to $50 were among a suite of transport-focused sweeteners.

The holders of power on Macquarie Street may not have gone as far as their Victorian counterparts did earlier this year in providing free fares for trains, trams and buses, but the transport carrots in the northern state will still cost taxpayers $561 million over the next 12 months.

Aside from carrots to woo voters, the cost of completing transport mega-projects in Sydney hangs over the state’s finances like a cloud that threatens to turn into a southerly buster.

The bill for a new metro rail line to Western Sydney Airport is forecast to blow out by $1 billion to $12 billion, while budget papers confirm that the final two stages of the M1 line between Chatswood and Bankstown will hit $22.3 billion – twice the original cost.

Yet one of the most interesting aspects of the budget was the hundreds of millions of extra toll revenue the government expects to reap annually within the next few years.

That will come courtesy of two-way charges on the Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel from 2028, as well as the opening of two new tolled motorways.

And after two years of negotiations with the state, toll road giant Transurban slipped out on budget day that it expects a final toll reform package to be “announced over the coming weeks”. A looming shake-up of toll pricing stands to be the big one for motorists in an election year.

State budgets love a shiny new hospital. There’ll be almost $12 billion to spend on health infrastructure, including the new builds at Rouse Hill and Bankstown. They don’t seem to have the same affection for mental health care – even after the Westfield Bondi Junction stabbing inquest spotlighted the significant deficiencies in community mental health services, long wait times for appointments, inpatient bed shortages and violent patients absconding from hospitals after being diverted from the justice system.

The budget offered $4.8 million for suicide prevention services, $43.3 million for Lifeline and $4.3 million split between peak bodies and community services.

Tuesday’s budget reclaimed (kind of) what the NSW government liked to call “Commonwealth patients” – people stuck in public hospital beds waiting for federal government-funded aged care or NDIS placements. With any luck, the new pilot program offering about 700 elderl