What we already know about the ACT 2025-26 budget

The Canberra Times

Transcript

00:00We're prepping at the moment for the ACT budget that's being released on Tuesday.

00:05We're coming off the back of an election last year. There's a lot of election promises on the

00:09table that will need funding to make sure they go ahead. And we know some things that are going

00:16to be in it, but there will also be things we're waiting to see in the budget papers.

00:20Last year, health was one of the biggest areas of spending. What can we anticipate is going to be,

00:27well, what do we know and what are we looking for when the budget papers get released?

00:31Yeah. So in the last budget, the ACT government spent $2.6 billion on health. And we know that

00:41we can expect something probably similar, if not more, this year. So despite that major

00:49expenditure in the budget, the government actually had to top up health spending by $227 million

00:59this year. So, and that's because they say the costs of everything have gone up and the demand

01:09for hospitals has also increased. So we know that hospital spending will be a major part of the budget,

01:19this upcoming budget.

01:20There's been a couple of health announcements so far that we know are going to get funding.

01:26What were some of those?

01:27So we know there'll be some money in the budget to incentivise bulk billing in GP practices. There's

01:35also going to be $2.4 million for some community health organisations and a bit over $9 million for

01:44youth mental health. So those are election promises, some of the 100 election promises that

01:52loans are made that will be funded in this budget.

01:58So I know that when we look at the budget papers, people are often thinking about infrastructure and

02:03what kind of big, obvious projects are going to be funded and billed. You were at the press

02:10conference for the Convention Centre announcement. Tell me more about that and what's happening there.

02:14Yeah. So we already knew that the central government had promised $100 million towards

02:20a new Convention Centre and also a new swimming pool. So now we know that the ACT government has promised

02:31another $100 million. So that would be, first of all, there'll be a new swimming pool to replace

02:40the Olympic Pool and Civic and then that will free up that land for a new Convention Centre.

02:46Lani, we've been talking a lot about housing over the past couple of months and we've done a couple of

02:52stories so far this year about homelessness, but also the people that are looking to get into the

02:58housing market. What's in the budget for first-time buyers this year?

03:01So first-time buyers are already eligible for a step G concession at up to about a million dollars. So we do

03:13know that the government has announced they will be increasing that. So you can buy a property more than a

03:18billion dollars if you're a first-owned buyer under a certain income and you will not have to pay

03:25stamp duty. They've also promised $170, $145 million to go towards housing projects and they're hoping they're

03:39going to release more land in the next five years to encourage more housing. So some of that has,

03:48we believe, has already been announced but the actual land itself hasn't been released yet. So

03:54they're hoping that there'll be both private and public sector investment to increase housing including

04:03some public housing. Beautiful. Now I'm sure the question on everyone's minds is going to be

04:08tomorrow rates. What do we know and what are we looking to see in the budget papers that will

04:14tell us more information about people's rates? So we know that rates will go up because they do every

04:20year. Unfortunately for anyone who owns property, we don't know how much yet. We will find that out

04:27on Tuesday. But we do know that there's not a percentage increase. Basically what happens is the

04:36government works out how much more money they need and then retroactively decides how much they'll

04:43increase rates. So we already know that there's been an increase in spending around health and that kind

04:56of thing. And so the government only has a few levers to pull to increase revenue and unfortunately rates

05:04is one of them. So I think a lot of people will be interested in how much more they have to pay.

05:11Well that sounds like there's a lot of different things happening. We'll be pouring over the papers

05:16on Tuesday to bring all the other stories.

05:18Yeah.

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