Nearly four months after the budget was tabled, Labor leader Minns on Wednesday got his say, calling for an extension of lockdown business support and a building blitz for schools and social housing.

Back in June - four days before Sydney was thrust into lockdown - Mr Perrottet announced a 2020/21 state budget deficit of $7.9 billion, with a $500 million surplus by 2024/25.

But the circumstances in which Mr Perrottet outlined his economic vision have shifted greatly since then.

NSW has changed premier, parts of the state have been locked down for more than 15 weeks, and the budget's bottom line has been hard hit.

And - Mr Minns argues - the city of Sydney has been divided.

"No one can make the case that the devastating effects of this outbreak have been felt evenly," Mr Minns told the parliament in his first budget reply speech as Labor leader.

"No one in the state has been spared. But the people of west and southwest Sydney have paid the highest price."

The areas were coronavirus hotspots and subject to stricter rules than the rest of Sydney - "the harshest lockdown of any place in Australia at any time during the pandemic", Mr Minns says.

More jobs have been lost in that part of Sydney than elsewhere, and businesses have suffered greater declines in turnover.

Support - from both the federal and state government - is going to be cut off too early, he said, calling for measures like JobSaver and payroll tax reductions to continue.

If Labor were in government, it would also make a huge investment in social housing and schools, to help boost the economy and repair social housing and classroom shortages.

Urgent repair and maintenance work on ageing social housing stock should be fast-tracked, and school building projects brought forward, the opposition leader said.

Labor also wants more support for students suffering after two years of pandemic learning, saying he fears a "kind of long COVID" for the education system.

A special small group tuition program for children whose learning was disrupted in 2020 should be extended, to help them recover from a lengthy lockdown.

Mr Minns is badging his budget reply as a "positive plan" for "inclusive growth", and he says he'd be happy for the government to steal his ideas.

The premier might need them, Mr Minns argued, given his record.

"The taxpayers of this state should be far more concerned about the premier's record of tolls, taxes, fines, charges - and record debt - than about the Perrottet collection of Trump hats and toy nuclear power stations," he said.

"Every time you pay a toll, send your kids to an overcrowded school, are stuck in traffic, or find the cost of living just that little bit harder - that's the record of the former treasurer - the new Premier Dominic Perrottet."

Mr Minns was initially slated to deliver his reply on June 24, but he postponed it as COVID-19 case numbers grew ahead of the lockdown.

Australian Associated Press