The ACT budget would fail to stem a decade's worth of decline in Canberra and any claim of a future surplus was "disingenuous", the opposition has said.
The acting leader of the Canberra Liberals, Jeremy Hanson, said the only thing in the ACT that would rise is the territory's debt.
"This budget contains the same tired promises Canberrans have been hearing for over a decade and it is at the point where it is difficult to believe what they say," Mr Hanson said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The ACT continues to have a broken health system including the longest emergency department wait times in the country; schools are run down and bursting at the seams along with a teacher shortage crisis; housing affordability is among the worst in the country with record homelessness; we have less busses on the road than we had in the 1990's and our suburbs have never looked worse."
Mr Hanson said he saw very little in the budget that would turn around a decline that began when Labor first governed in coalition with the Greens a decade ago.
"Canberrans should be very concerned about the decline we are seeing in the ACT and the only increase they will see is in their rates bill and fees and charges," he said.
The budget, tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday afternoon, said general rates, along with most government fees and charges, would increase by 3.75 per cent in 2023-24.
Mr Hanson said the government was leaving behind a large number of aspirational Canberrans who were feeling the pinch.
The peak body representing public school parents and citizens in the territory welcomed more spending but warned infrastructure investments were playing catch up.
The president of the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations, Alison Elliott, welcomed the announcement of "inclusion coaches", investment in healthy food for school canteens and $40 million for teachers.
"We're pleased to see money for some school upgrades and planning for a college in Molonglo. But overall the spending is not forward thinking enough," Ms Elliott said in a statement.
"In the case of Gungahlin schools, the spending is going into playing catch up, providing college and high school places that we've been requesting for years and which will now be desperately needed before the schools can be built."
More to come.
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