Dine and Discover: Furious singles, families, grandparents rage over Dom ...

Enraged singles, parents with young kids and the elderly have lashed out at NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet's new $250 Dine and Discover vouchers for parents of schoolchildren.  

Mr Perrottet on Thursday announced the new vouchers will be available through Service NSW for households which had at least one school-aged child in 2021.

The free cash can be claimed from March, will be valid until October and must be used on recreation, entertainment or accommodation.

But not everyone was pleased with the move - with the money only flowing to 22 per cent of the population. 

Many social media users have asked why such a small slice of the population are being awarded the boost when lockdowns have affected almost everyone in the state.  

Furious Aussies that spent four months indoors fumed that the move is a 'slap in the face' to essential workers and families with kids unable to go to daycare. 

'What about all the families who have children under 5 at home the whole time while still working full time? They don't get a thanks? Has he ever dealt with the tantrums, probably not,' one Facebook user wrote.

'What about people whose hard earned taxes are contributing throughout this lockdown and whose mental health have equally suffered but don't have kids? Not everyone has 6 going on 7 kids to benefit from this scheme,' said one referencing the NSW Premier's growing brood of children.

'What about all those people that went through lockdown that live alone and no social interactions? Where they could go days without talking to anyone or seeing another person,' asked another.

One pensioner said the move was 'disgusting'. 

'What about pensioners are we the forgotten ones again? We had the same lockdown as everyone else we couldn't go out anywhere,' she said.

'So all of us parents who had to take kids out of daycare AND work full time while entertaining a 2 year old doesn't get anything, because our child is not in school?' another NSW resident commented.

'It wasn't just families with Children that went through lockdown!!!!'.

Another pointed out the vital role essential workers played in the pandemic and suggested they receive some kind of reward.

'What about the nurses and essential workers that just went to work and straight home?' they said.

'As usual everyone without school age kids doesn't count despite all their efforts in this difficult time. not to mention all the work the teachers put in so the parents could be the 'primary educators' wow, slap in the face much!' another furious woman wrote.  

Father-of-six Mr Perrottet - who describes himself as a 'Premier for families' - said the measure was a reward for parents who had to home-school during lockdown.

'In many senses this is a ''thank you'' that will go some small way towards helping family finances that took a big hit and at the same time supporting businesses and jobs,' he said. 

'We know it has been an incredibly difficult time of juggling kids, work and family life but we all owe you a great deal of gratitude.

'We want you to get out, with your kids, or take some respite from them and go out with your partner, and enjoy the best that New South Wales has to offer.'  

The Premier stressed there was 'something for everyone' in his $2.8billion cash splash to get the NSW economy moving again after Covid-19 lockdowns. 

He said 300,000 people lost their jobs in NSW last year including 250,000 since June. 

Treasurer Matt Kean said the unemployment rate in NSW would hit 6.4 per cent in December.

He said the package will boost confidence, provide fresh opportunities and support NSW to return to a way of life 'we know and love'.

'But we don't just want to recover what we lost, we want to bounce back better than ever – and this package lays the foundations to do exactly that,' he said. 

The Treasurer said the four-month lockdown from June to October cost the state's economy $50billion.  

On Wednesday the premier announced that millions of Australians desperate for a post-lockdown getaway will be rewarded with free $50 voucher to holiday in their own backyard. 

Every NSW resident will each receive a Stay and Rediscover voucher to go towards accommodation in hotels, camping grounds and caravan parks across the state.

The premier announced the vouchers as part of his $500million tourism recovery package designed to give the state economy a much need boost post-lockdown.

The Stay and Rediscover vouchers will first be the subject of a pilot program and before being rolled out statewide in March.

'NSW isn't just going to bounce back, we're going to fly back and that's on the back of significant investment from the NSW government,' the Premier said on Wednesday.

'We know that the borders will open and we want to be ahead of the curve here in NSW when it comes to ensuring that tourism comes back with a bang.'

'It's about getting people out and about again, enjoying the best of what NSW has to offer.' 

Tourism minister Stuart Ayres added: 'Every dollar counts when you're a tourist and we want to stretch that dollar as far as we can.' 

Intrastate travel remains off limits to Sydneysiders until November 1 to allow regional areas with lagging vaccination rates to catch up with the state average, which is more than 80 per cent double-vaxxed. 

The Stay and Discover initiative will work similar to the successful Dine and Discover scheme and will replace the $100 vouchers for stays in the CBD.

Mr Perrottet is confident the travel initiative will be as successful as Dine and Discover.