Victorian budget LIVE updates: State revenue revealed to fall almost $8 billion in a year as Tim Pallas hands down historic state budget

The Victorian government will use record levels of debt and deficit to spend $49 billion in the next four years in an effort to drag Victoria out of the disastrous COVID-19 recession.

The government has set an ambitious target of creating 400,000 jobs in the coming five years.

A massive spend, with the jobs plan at its centre, will take the government’s net debt to nearly $155 billion within three years, more than 28 per cent of Victoria’s total annual economic output.

You can get across today's budget by reading:

• State political editor Noel Towell and data journalist Craig Butt's wrap
• Your job, housing, health and commute: What the budget means for you
• The winners and losers
• Nine graphs to explain Victoria's record debt, deficit and just what it will cost

If you're looking for a list summarising Victoria's $49 billion spending spree over the next four years, here is one we prepared earlier ...

• $5.3 billion for social housing
• $5 billion for Melbourne Airport Rail Link
• $3 billion to build and upgrade state schools
• $2.2 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop
• $2 billion for fast trains to Geelong

• $2 billion "breakthrough fund" for research and technology
• $1.6 billion for school disability funding
• $1.6 billion for renewable energy, including $795 million for upgrading heaters and coolers in low-income households
• $540 million for six renewable energy zones
• $1.48 billion for 100 new accessible trams to retire the ageing A and Z Class trams
• $1.4 billion to upgrade the Melbourne arts precinct, including a new contemporary art gallery at Southbank
• $870 million in funding for mental health
• $630 million for additional TAFE places
• $600 million Jobs Plan, including $250 million in wage subsidies with a focus on older women
• $500 million Victorian Homebuyer Fund for people who cannot afford a 20 per cent deposit
• $500 million for mobile blackspots and business broadband connectivity
• $465 million for regional tourism
• $320 million for upgrades to health facilities across the state
• $300 million to upgrade Victoria Police systems
• $300 million for an elective surgery blitz
• $290 million to halve stamp duty for new homes worth up to $1 million
• $175 million for fire equipment and firefighting training
• $120 million for in-home services like dialysis, palliative care and chemotherapy
• $100 million for low-interest loans to local councils for infrastructure
• $65 million to acquire land for planned hospitals in Pakenham Torquay, Eltham, Point Cook and Whittlesea
• $60.5 million for the Victorian Startup Capital Fund to support early-stage entrepreneurs
• $50 million for research and development loans
• $30 million for regional travel vouchers and upgrades to facilities at tourist hotspots such as the Grampians and Wilsons Promontory
• $20 million for continuing negotiations on a treaty with Victoria’s First Nations people, and
• $16 million to decriminalise public drunkenness.

It has been a huge year for health spending. Victoria’s commitment to suppressing COVID-19 will cost almost $3 billion this year, with the government banking on a vaccine to allow health expenditure to be reined in within the next seven months.

State political reporter Sumeyya Ilabney summarises this year's health spend:

• The public health team’s overall budget will more than double to $1.18 billion following years of underinvestment.

• $2.9 billion – about half of which is being provided by the Commonwealth – will this year go towards the state's public health team and increasing testing capacity, pathology labs and supply chain processes.
• However, funding to suppress the virus dives significantly in the forward estimates to $37.6 million in 2021/22, $6.1 million in 2022/23, and $6.3 million in 2023/24. It is unclear how much of that, either this year or in the future, will come from the federal government.
• $40 million will help cover the cost of introducing minimum staff-to-resident ratios in federally-governed private aged care if the Commonwealth – the industry regulator – steps in to provide further funding.
• Hospitals will get $862.8 million to maintain their capacity to prepare for demand. This money will include $300 million over the next four years – $50 million of it this year – for an elective surgery blitz.
• The long-awaited $70 million Melton Hospital the government announced on the eve of the budget will only receive $100,000 this year, with most of the funding coming after the next election.
• A $384 million redevelopment of the Warrnambool Base Hospital will get only $3.3 million, with most of the money to be allocated after the next election.
• Some work will start on the $562 million Frankston Hospital, with $16.2 million earmarked in this year’s budget.
• $115 million has been set aside for the Metropolitan Health Infrastructure Fund and $66 million to acquire land in Cranbourne, Torquay, Pakenham, Whittlesea, Eltham, Point Cook and the inner south for community hospitals, as well as planning for three more.

Read more here.

We've had many questions come in about the stamp duty waiver announced today. For home buyers in the market for a house worth up to $1 million, stamp duty will be halved for new homes and cut by a quarter for existing properties.

You asked: When does the stamp duty discount come into play? Are the stamp duty rebates retrospective if you are about to build a new home? If I signed a contract of sale in November 2020, do I get the stamp duty saving?

Answer: The stamp duty waiver will be available for contracts entered between November 25, 2020, and June 30, 2021.

Unfortunately, it is not retrospective.

The Urban Development Institute of Australia took credit for the move saying it pitched the idea to halve stamp duty as a "budget-neutral measure that would stimulate economic activity".

The government has also extended the $20,000 first home owners grant for regional Victorians.

"For the next four years we are going to see unemployment in this state higher than the national average," Opposition Leader Michael O'Brien says.

"That is an admission of failure. It tells you this budget has missed the mark, because we need to see Victoria getting back to work, we need to see Victoria revitalised, not dragging the chain on the rest of the country.

"We can’t admit defeat. We can’t admit that for the next four years Victoria’s job growth will be less than we need to be to get back to number one. I want to see Victoria back to number one again. But this budget says don’t bother.

"This budget says we’re going to drag the chain when it comes to jobs’ growth in this state. At the moment we have one in five Victorians out of a job, or not getting the hours they want … that is the definition of a jobs crisis. And today we needed to see urgent action to create new jobs, particularly in small business.

"Small business is the jobs' engine room of this state, and small business has been left out in the cold. There is almost nothing in this budget for small business and that is such a shame and it’s such a missed opportunity … we need to see those high street shopping strips revived, if we’re going to get Victoria back to work."