23 September 2026
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I rise today to add my voice to those across Canberra’s business, skills, sport and arts communities who have every right to feel disappointed by this year’s Budget.
This is a Budget that asks Canberrans to pay more to cover the cost of Labor’s mistakes. It asks households and businesses to shoulder a greater burden, while too often delivering less in return.
And across each of my portfolios, we see the same pattern: higher costs, broken promises and a government increasingly unable to deliver.
Mr Speaker, let me start with business.
The Pegasus Economics report into the Budget stated that “the ACT Budget is increasingly reliant on payroll taxes.”
Payroll tax is forecast to become an increasingly important source of government revenue. Yet what do Canberra businesses have to show for the additional burden being placed upon them?
At the same time that the Government is demanding more from business, it has slashed funding for business communication and engagement nearly in half.
And when we ask why important initiatives in the Small Business Strategy — such as a digital business account — have not been delivered, the Government’s answer is that they simply were not prioritised in the Budget.
Mr Speaker, that says everything about this Government’s approach to business.
A strong small and medium business sector should be at the heart of repairing the Territory’s finances. We need businesses investing, employing Canberrans, creating opportunities and growing our economy.
Instead, this Government seems more interested in ideology than practical solutions to make Canberra a better place to do business.
And unfortunately, Mr Speaker, that pattern continues when we turn to skills.
Last year, the Minister proudly trumpeted the Government’s $79 million investment in skills.
But look at this year’s Budget and a very different picture emerges. Of that $79 million, only $37 million has actually been spent on skills delivery.
At the same time, the CIT CEO saga has left the Territory’s largest provider of vocational education and training without a permanent CEO.
At a time when Canberra employers are crying out for skilled workers, we need a vocational education system focused on apprentices, trainees, employers and delivering the skills our economy actually needs.
Instead, we have uncertainty at CIT and questions about whether the Government is delivering the investment it so proudly announced.
Mr Speaker, the story is no better when we turn to sport.
We often talk about the ACT having one of the highest rates of sport and recreation participation in the country. Canberra is an active city, and an active city needs space to move.
In the lead-up to this Budget, the community made its priorities clear.
Sporting clubs and organisations called for better maintenance of our existing facilities and a long-term plan to deliver the sporting infrastructure Canberra will need as our city grows.
Instead, Labor chose to delay its promised sporting facilities in Casey and Throsby.
The Minister will tell us that these projects have merely been “delayed”.
But, Mr Speaker, Canberrans have heard that word before.
Under this Government, a delayed project has an unfortunate habit of becoming a dead project.
Just ask the people of Tuggeranong, who spent a decade being told that their promised ice rink was still coming.
How many more communities are expected to wait year after year for infrastructure they were promised?
Finally, Mr Speaker, we need to talk about the arts.
Canberra should be a city where creativity and innovation can flourish.
But to achieve that, we need an arts ecosystem that gives local performers, musicians and artists somewhere to start.
I have spoken with people across Canberra’s arts community who are crying out for more local performance spaces — particularly medium-sized venues.
These venues matter.
They are where emerging artists find an audience. They are where undiscovered talent gets its first opportunity. They are where a genuinely local and organic arts culture can develop.
Yet instead of addressing those grassroots needs, this Government is spending millions pursuing a new lyric theatre in the city.
It speaks to a Government more interested in grand projects than the everyday infrastructure local artists are asking for.
And perhaps the Government thought there simply wasn’t enough congestion in the city already.
Mr Speaker, these four areas may seem different — business, skills, sport and the arts — but the underlying problem is the same.
It is about trust.
This budget abuses the trust of the people of Canberra.
Canberrans expect that when they pay their rates, that money will be used to deliver the services and infrastructure their communities need.
They expect that when a government makes a commitment, it will honour it.
And they expect that when a government announces funding, that funding will actually be delivered.
This Budget fails those tests.
It asks Canberrans to pay more while receiving less.
It delays projects communities were promised.
It fails to deliver initiatives the Government itself said were important.
And once again, it asks this Assembly to believe that a surplus is just around the corner.
Mr Speaker, this Budget has almost single-handedly made the case for a Charter of Budget Honesty.
Because when we vote on this Appropriation Bill, we are not voting on behalf of the Government.
We are voting on behalf of the people who sent us here.
And the Government is asking us to support a Budget that breaks promises, asks Canberrans to pay more for less, and once again promises a return to surplus despite serious questions about whether that will actually be delivered.
I cannot support that.
The Opposition cannot support that.
Because the people of Canberra deserve a budget that respects ratepayers’ money, keeps its promises and delivers works to build trust in the community.
They deserve better than this Budget.