2025-26 Budget context

The ACT Government’s focus is on targeting investment to responsibly support frontline service delivery – focusing on health and education, as well as providing services to support the most vulnerable people within our community. In addition, we will continue our work to support local businesses in creating job opportunities to support our growing population.

The Budget consultation process provides an important opportunity for the community to be involved in the budget process.

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.

Working together, we can ensure that limited resources are put to their most efficient use.

What we're looking at

The Budget consultation process addresses the ACT Government’s core areas of responsibility. These include:

• 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.

Wellbeing indicators

The ACT Wellbeing Framework looks at 12 aspects of wellbeing. We call them ‘domains’. The community told us these domains were the most important to their quality of life.

There are 56 specific areas across the domains. We call these areas ‘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 2025-26 Budget and those into the future.

Through the ACT Wellbeing website,, you can learn more about wellbeing in the ACT. The website includes the Wellbeing Impact Assessment template. The template helps us better understand the impact of policies and proposals on the wellbeing of our people, institutions and environment.

How you can have YourSay

You can provide your or your organisation’s input through two ways:

Provide us with a written submission

We encourage budget submissions to focus on ideas about how the Government can best support the wellbeing of the Canberra community.

Bear in mind that the ACT Government will require sufficient time to adequately review and consider all submissions in accordance with the 2025-26 Budget delivery schedule.

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 2025.

If you have difficulty using the submission form, your content may still be emailed through to budgetconsultation@act.gov.au. If you provide a submission by email, ensure you inform us whether your content can be made public or is to be treated in a confidential manner.

Complete our survey

You’re welcome to provide your views on how the ACT Government can best allocate its resources via the 2025-26 Budget Consultation survey.

The survey will open in February 2025 and be conducted on the YourSay Panel.

By joining the Panel, you can help shape the policies, programs and services that make Canberra a great place to live.

To take part in this survey, and others, join the Panel.

Important note

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.

Meetings with community and industry groups

Regular engagement between community and industry groups and ACT Government Ministers and agencies is vital to policy development and optimising government service delivery.

To support ongoing engagement, the ACT Government will also meet with a range of community and industry representative groups in early 2025 to seek input on their social and economic priorities.

While there is not a fixed deadline for receiving input, we encourage early engagement with relevant Ministers and their directorates. Providing formal submissions in early 2025, ideally ahead of the February consultation roundtable sessions, will help inform discussions at these meetings.

How we'll use your views

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. 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.

What we won't publish online

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.