Loading the budget editor…
Everything recalculates in your browser as you drag — nothing is sent anywhere until you choose to save. Consequences are modelled estimates, each shown with its assumption and source.
Loaded: ACT Labor announced platform · No policies recorded for this party yet. You can move any slider from here.
Your bottom line
$700.0MIn the holedeficit
$700,000,000
You haven't changed anything yet — this is the government's own budget.
$1,437 for every person in ACT, this year alone.
What this does to the debt
The ACT government already owes $12.5B — roughly $25,657 for every person in ACT.
Your budget piles on another $700.0M, so next year it owes $13.2B.
This is net debt — what's owed after subtracting the money the government holds. The number you see in the news is usually bigger, because that one counts everything borrowed before any of the savings are subtracted. Both are real. They measure different things.
The number above covers the day-to-day running of ACT — what comes in against what gets spent on wages, services and payments. It is what these sliders move. It does not include the cost of building things: roads, hospitals, schools.
The building figure stays as published, because nothing on this page changes it. Source: Parliamentary Budget Office National Fiscal Outlook (CC BY 4.0).
Your overall score
49Mixedout of 100
A weighted blend of the nine measures below, and 50 is the government's own budget. You are scored against what was actually proposed, so you begin in the middle.
A high score is meant to be hard. Every extra dollar on a service is worth less than the last, and paying for it costs you on tax burden — so spending more on everything lands roughly where you started. Moving the number means choosing what to give up.
If big changes are not shifting it, the lever is usually the weights below: the score is your priorities, and until you set them it uses the default ones.
Step 1
Drag a slider to spend more or less on something. You can change each line by up to half, either way. Interest is locked because it follows the debt rather than any decision.
Taxes, levies and charges. Drag one up and you raise more — and someone pays it.
Money the state raises by itself — taxes like payroll tax, stamp duty and land tax, plus fees, fines and charges.
Money the state gets from the federal government, including its share of the GST. States cannot set this themselves.
What the government buys with it. Drag one down and something gets less.
Hospitals, ambulances, mental health services and public health programs.
The cost of running government itself: parliament, the premier’s or prime minister’s department, collecting taxes, and interest on money the government has borrowed.
Schools, TAFE, universities and early childhood learning.
Help for people who need it: pensions, disability support, family payments, child protection and homelessness services.
Police, courts, prisons, fire brigades and emergency services like the SES.
Roads, railways, buses, ferries, ports and airports.
Looking after air, water, parks and wildlife, plus rubbish collection and recycling.
Sport and recreation, parks, libraries, museums, the arts and public broadcasting.
Support for industries and jobs: farming, mining, tourism, energy, and programs that help people find work.
Public housing, water supply, sewerage and street lighting.
Spending the budget papers do not split into a category. It is shown so the totals add up, not because it is a service anyone can change.
Step 2 — optional
The score treats every measure as equally important. If some matter more to you than others, change them below and the score updates. Skip this and we use an even split.
Nine measures, each with the weight applied to it and a plain-English account of how it was derived.
Higher means the measure counts for more in the overall score. Values are rescaled to add up to 100%.
Step 3
Move a slider in Step 1 to see your result.
Change at least one figure — then this opens up.
Your scenario against the government budget. Pick a view.
| Category | Government budget | Your scenario |
|---|---|---|
| Health | $2,900,000,000 | $2,900,000,000 |
| Running the government | $2,300,000,000 | $2,300,000,000 |
| Education | $2,200,000,000 | $2,200,000,000 |
| Social protection | $800,000,000 | $800,000,000 |
| Police, courts and emergency services | $800,000,000 | $800,000,000 |
| Transport | $600,000,000 | $600,000,000 |
| Environment | $300,000,000 | $300,000,000 |
| Recreation, culture and sport | $200,000,000 | $200,000,000 |
| Jobs and industry | $100,000,000 | $100,000,000 |
| Housing and community | $100,000,000 | $100,000,000 |
| Unallocated | $0 | $0 |
These are modelled estimates, not predictions. Each one is calculated by a data rule — a set formula applied to the figures you changed — using the assumption stated with it. Expand a consequence to see that assumption and its source.
No consequences fired yet. Move a slider to see the modelled effects.