ACT budget slugs ratepayers with health levy

Deflating the $1.1 billion deficit was the order of the day when ACT Treasurer Chris Steel delivered his first budget on Tuesday.

With that aim front of mind, the government hit Canberra ratepayers with a $250 health levy in an effort to help reduce the territory’s arrears by $600 million over the next financial year.

“Difficult decisions” were needed, said Steel, to get the national capital’s coffers “on a stronger footing”.

Healthcare costs are forecast to balloon to $2.9 billion in 2025-26 forcing the government to “confront the need to invest in our healthcare system”.

That investment will go towards:

• addressing the growing demand in outpatient services, emergency department presentations and admitted patient care
• enabling the delivery of the government’s commitment of 70,000 elective surgeries over four years
• delivering ongoing chronic disease services and expanded endoscopy services
• meeting the needs of long-stay patients and optimise patient flow through public hospitals.

With the Commonwealth reducing funding for hospitals, the Treasurer said the government had no choice but to introduce the levy to sustain a public health system “under extraordinary pressure with high demand and growing costs”.

There is a need to make difficult decisions. 

The squeeze on ratepayers didn’t end there, with general rates increasing by an average of 3.75 per cent. “This will help deliver the services that Canberrans expect,” said Steel.

High value residences – those with an unimproved land value worth $1 million-plus – will be slugged the most.

“We knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” Property Council ACT executive director Ashlee Berry said. “Commercial property owners and tenants are already under pressure – and when you dig into the numbers, the increases could be quite material.”

In addition to the health levy and the rates increase, the Safer Families Levy – established to provide domestic violence support – will rise by $10 to $60, and the Emergency Services Levy will climb by $30 to $426.

Spruiking the government’s fiscal strategy to reporters, Steel said: “It’s a budget for better health care, a budget for more housing, more jobs, growing wages and supporting the most vulnerable people in our community.”