ACT Labor has sharpened its attacks on the economic credentials of the Canberra Liberals two weeks from election day, with Chief Minister Andrew Barr warning Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee's commitments risked a $1 billion blackhole in the territory's budget.
The Liberals have not submitted any requests for costings to ACT Treasury, meaning their election commitments will not be independently priced before the start of early voting on Tuesday.
But Ms Lee rejected Labor's assessment of her party's policies and said Mr Barr should be embarrassed throwing the "absurd" figures out in public.
Labor has seized on the Liberals' failure to submit costings requests before the long weekend. Mr Barr said opposition promises showed "we're back in Alistair Coe magic pudding economics world here, where revenue is going to be significantly reduced and expenditure significantly increased".
"They're just not serious about putting any of these proposals through any independent assessment, but even a quick analysis of the lost revenue rolls into at least a billion dollars over the next parliamentary term," Mr Barr said.
The Canberra Liberals gathered in Tuggeranong on Saturday to launch their campaign, with Ms Lee, who was introduced by former Liberal senator Margaret Reid and former chief minister Kate Carnell, promising Canberra would be "open for business" under a new government.
But Mr Barr rubbished the promises unveiled by the opposition, saying the extra spending commitments made alongside promises to reduce the taxes collected by the government were unfunded. Mr Barr also criticised the Greens' failure to submit costings requests.
Which party will 'pay' off?
The Liberals on Saturday announced they would cut payroll taxes - the largest own-source revenue stream in the territory - for wages up to $5 million, with the tax rate to fall from 6.85 per cent to 5.45 per cent.
Payroll tax was budgeted to make up more than 31 per cent of the territory's own source revenue in the 2024-25 budget. The party has already promised to slow the growth of general rates, the second-largest own-source revenue stream.
Labor said the payroll tax cuts, which would primarily support large businesses and multinational companies, would cost the ACT budget about $500 million over four years.
A previously announced Liberal commitment to cap the growth in general rates, paid by households, to 2.2 per cent a year would also leave the budget about $400 million worse off over the next four-year term, Labor said.
Ms Lee said she was confident her policies were sustainable, and accelerated land release would deliver an extra $900 million in sales revenue over the next term.
"How the Treasurer of the ACT can come to the conclusion that reducing payroll tax from 6.85 per cent to 5.45 per cent for a bracket of $2 million to $5 million would cost the territory over half a billion dollars shows he is either misleading the public or incompetent," she said in a statement.
Mr Barr said it was necessary to raise government revenue to provide the public services a growing city needed.
"So the combination of all of these tax policies effectively says to the public sector, and workers in the public sector, that they will never get a pay rise above inflation under a Liberal government, that they will go backwards in real terms, because if revenue is growing by less than 2.2 per cent then there is no way wage offers can be higher than that," Mr Barr said.
Ms Lee told the Liberal campaign launch at the Tuggeranong Vikings club she wanted to get rid of payroll tax completely "like every true Liberal".
"But as Labor is leaving us with an eye-watering debt that Kate [Carnell] has just spoken about, which is set to grow in the forward estimates, we cannot afford to do so, but we can offer some relief," she said.
Ms Lee said businesses with a payroll between $2 million and $5 million would save about $24,000 annually. Labor said the Liberals policy amounted to a cut of about $42,000 for each eligible payroll tax paying entity annually.
Supercars, super promises
Ms Lee told the Liberal launch a Supercar race in Canberra would bring up to $50 million in direct economic benefit to the city.
"It's something different. It's something exciting and something that's been sorely missing for far too long," she said.
Mr Barr decided in 2023 not to proceed with a proposal to bring a Supercar event to Canberra. He said on Saturday the cost of infrastructure was $10 million, the race would cause significant disruption to the road network, and the business case did not stack up.
"There is a long and storied history around Supercar events that the Liberal Party have proposed and supported when they were last in government that led to some scathing Auditor-General reports, and the event being canned because it cost way more than they anticipated and delivered less than was expected," he said.
