Canberra Business Chamber CEO Greg Harford says agencies need to make a concerted effort to find savings. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The ACT Government needs to find savings of up to 10 per cent in its Public Service as part of repairing the Budget, Canberra’s peak business body says.
At the same time, the Canberra Business Chamber is calling for the government to put on hold increases to rates, fees, taxes, levies and other charges, to provide relief to businesses and their customers at a time of increased cost of living.
The chamber’s 2026-27 Budget submission says Treasurer Chris Steel should follow the lead of federal counterpart Jim Chalmers, who has told Commonwealth agencies to identify savings of five per cent within their budgets, to be reallocated within the Federal budget.
Only the chamber is urging the ACT to go harder, calling for savings of five to 10 per cent.
“Good business practice is to budget from the ground up and to identify areas of savings before looking to put up prices,” the submission says.
“Applying this in a government context would be seeking to fund new spending by reallocating existing spend to areas of higher priority or need.”
The submission says this did not have to mean job cuts.
“This is not necessarily a specific call for headcount reductions per se,” it says.
“Often, businesses can identify and realise significant efficiencies across multiple areas including IT, licensing, travel, systems, catering, carparking and vehicles.”
The submission says while there are areas where the government needs to spend money, the ACT is a small jurisdiction with a limited tax base.
“We are concerned that, over time, we are becoming more out of balance with competing jurisdictions,” it says.
In its call to freeze rates and charges this Budget, the submission says Canberra businesses, which employ about two-thirds of Canberra workers, have faced steadily escalating costs, as well as a depressed operating environment.
“Businesses are often unable to increase their costs because consumers are also squeezed and unable to pay more,” it says.
“A significant proportion of businesses report that they are not generating a profit. This is not a sustainable position in the long run, and carries a risk that businesses will not survive.”
The government has said that agencies have already been ordered to find efficiencies but chamber chief executive Greg Harford told Region it could do more.
“They really need to make a real concerted effort to find some savings,” he said.
Mr Harford rejected government claims that this would lead to job cuts.
“We really question whether that’s correct,” he said.
“Businesses are often finding ways of generating efficiency, making savings.
“It seems likely that when you’re talking about a total budget in the order of what the government spends, that there’s got to be some opportunities there as well.
“The Federal Government certainly thinks that there are opportunities in the federal Budget to reprioritise the money.
“It’s likely that there’s some opportunities within the local budget as well.”
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has said there is no appetite within the Legislative Assembly for cutting spending.
But Mr Harford said it wasn’t a case of singling out any one area or making swinging cuts, but looking across the breadth of government activity and reallocating and reprioritising.
Sometimes that meant things needed to happen differently or be delayed.
“The question is, can you shave a small amount of cost off the delivery of individual programs because all of that adds up collectively into some bigger numbers which might help you manage your budget,” he said.
Mr Harford acknowledged that initiatives like the new Digital Canberra agency could save the government money but the issue was one more broadly across areas of government.
On rates and changes, Mr Harford said they couldn’t rise forever, particularly when the economy was tight.
He said, for example, payroll tax increases would make the ACT increasingly uncompetitive for business.
“There’ll be a further round of changes in July, which really extend the payroll tax to a greater number of businesses,” he said.
Mr Harford said ever-increasing levels of government spending and ever-increasing levels of taxation was not good for business or the economy.
Mr Steel will hand down the ACT Budget in June.
