The ACT Government’s focus is on creating job opportunities, delivering high-quality services, and investing in the infrastructure needs of one of the fastest growing jurisdictions in Australia.

As we develop future budgets, the ACT Government will continue working with the community to make sure we continue to provide the services identified as being needed by Canberrans to ensure our city remains a great place to live.

The Budget consultation process provides an important opportunity for the community to be involved in the budget process. Working together, we can ensure that limited resources are put to their most efficient use.

The Budget consultation process encompasses the ACT Government’s core areas of responsibility, including:

• Health and community wellbeing
• Education and life-long learning
• Housing and home
• Community support, social inclusion and safety
• Environment, climate and transport
• Jobs, sports, arts, culture and entertainment

The ACT Wellbeing Framework looks at 12 aspects of wellbeing – which we call ‘domains’ –that the community told us were most important to their quality of life. This includes 56 specific areas across the domains – which we call ‘indicators’. Our indicators show broadly how we are doing in each domain. Over time, indicator results will provide the basis for discussions between government and the community and during the development of the 2024-25 Budget and those into the future.

Through the ACT Wellbeing Framework site, you can learn more about wellbeing including the Wellbeing Impact Assessment template which we have developed to better understand the impact of policies and proposals on the wellbeing of our people, institutions and environment.

Budget Consultation is an ongoing process. You can contribute your suggestions at any time to help inform the development of future Budget priorities and decisions about where funding is allocated. We encourage budget submissions to focus on ideas about how the Government can best support the wellbeing of the Canberra community.

Please email your submission to BudgetConsultation@act.gov.au. If you provide a submission via email, please indicate whether your content can be made public, or is to be treated in a confidential manner.

Budget submissions are not a way for organisations to request funding short-term assistance, or for others to do so on their behalf. Organisations seeking funding opportunities are encouraged to consult the ACT Government Grants website.

Regular engagement between community and industry groups and ACT Government Ministers and agencies is a vital input in the formulation of policy and optimising government service delivery.

To complement this ongoing engagement, the ACT Government will also meet with a range of community and industry representative groups in early 2024 to seek input from these groups on their social and economic priorities.

As noted earlier, while we do not provide a fixed deadline for receiving input, we strongly encourage early engagement with relevant Ministers and their directorates, with formal submissions provided in early 2024, ideally ahead of the February consultation roundtable sessions. This will help support informed discussion of the issues at these meetings.

Early engagement maximises the quality of information, discussion and detail needed by Ministers to present clear proposals for consideration in the context of the 2024-25 Budget.

The YourSay Panel was invited to provide their views on how the ACT Government can best allocate its resources via the 2024-25 Budget Consultation survey.

The survey was open 12 February - 3 March 2024.

To join the Panel for future opportunities to help shape the policies, programs and services that make Canberra a great place to live click here.

Your ideas will help inform the development of future Budget priorities and decisions about how funding is allocated.

If you provide permission for your budget submission or survey to be made public, it will be uploaded to the Budget Consultation website for other Canberrans to consider. Confidential items will still be reviewed by the ACT Government, but not published on this website. The ACT Government will not generally respond to individual survey responses or budget submissions but will consider input received in the development of future budgets.

Please note the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate retains the right to withhold input from publication if it believes that the content is defamatory, offensive, contravenes anti-discrimination or anti-vilification law or otherwise breaches any law.