00:22Hello and welcome to budget lockup for 2026. We've just been delivered our USBs and our
00:28hard copies of the budget papers to start getting into it. We've now got about six hours to work
00:34through them before the treasurer stands to his feet this afternoon. First thing we start with
00:38is the embargoed budget speech which gives us a good overview of what the government's hoping
00:42that people will kind of see as the top things in this budget. We've got the women's budget
00:47statement review and then all of our papers. Okay the team's all working in here. We're gonna head
00:57down the hallway to get some of the additional papers that we can use for reporting.
01:06Here's all the portfolio budget statements that we can use for today. So we've got
01:10Treasury, Defence, Prime Minister and Cabinet. There's heaps and these all give us additional
01:16information and contacts for our reporting.
01:18We're going to get here what's very good.
01:19We're all happy to be able to do it.
01:44We're so happy to be able to get into it.
01:50I am the digital editor for CT, so I am preparing our social media posts, our plans for where
01:58we're going to put the stories on the homepage, getting ready to communicate with our producers
02:03off-site when we are out of lock-up.
02:06Hello, I'm the deputy editor of the Canberra Times and my job is to make sure that everybody
02:11files on time, so at the moment we're just looking at the stories that we have on the
02:15page and working out what our priorities are, what are the most interesting parts of the
02:20budget, making a few last minute changes and then when the lights come back on and the
02:25Wi-Fi returns at 7.30, we get to send it all out to our colleagues outside.
02:28I'm looking for savings in the budget apart from the huge NDIS drop, so climate department
02:35they're carrying a bit of the load, more than we thought, I think.
02:39I'm looking at what's in the budget for the ACT, so it's about 4 o'clock so I'm getting
02:44a bit of a clearer picture after rifling through budget papers 1, 2 and 3 and just getting a
02:50piece together to file for 5 o'clock, which is one hour away.
02:54And what have you found so far?
02:56So there's very little in terms of new big funding for the ACT.
03:00Most of what I'm seeing is $30 million for a new RSPCA animal welfare centre, $50 million
03:06in road upgrades, a little bit of funding for health.
03:11I am filing on housing, mostly on negative gearing and capital gains, but there's also
03:16some more money in there for housing for first home buyers and they're continuing the ban on
03:23foreign investors.
03:24Very importantly though, we're eating some snakes.
03:29This is our office here and you can see behind me a big line of journos.
03:33They're all waiting with a ticket number to chat to Treasury officials who can give us
03:37some context on stuff that we might not understand in the budget.
03:41Very helpful.
03:42Well, as you can see, Finance Minister Katie Geller has been and gone.
03:46Some of my colleagues have been to the Blue Room press conference and we're just finishing
03:51off our final stories.
03:52It's 5.30 so we've got about two hours until the Treasurer stands up in the House of Reps.
03:57There's a fair bit to do before then in terms of polishing stories off, getting photos in,
04:02making sure that it can all get to print and online on time.
04:06So it's gotten pretty quiet in the press gallery now.
04:09People are kind of finished asking their questions of Treasury officials and discussing things
04:13and it's really just writing time.
04:15Well, the Treasurer is now very close to standing up, which means that we are almost
04:20finished filing.
04:20We'll leave you here in a minute.
04:21This has been a really interesting budget.
04:23Broadly, there's been a lot of emphasis on changes to tax, particularly pertaining to
04:29property.
04:29You can read a lot more about that on our website.
04:32But I'm Lucinda Garbutt-Young and we hope you've enjoyed coming behind the scenes of Lock
04:36Up With Us.
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