ACT Treasurer Chris Steel will unveil his first budget on Tuesday amid "challenging" fiscal circumstances, with ballooning hospital costs expected to drive another big deficit.
Mr Steel caught a hospital pass from Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who delivered the previous 13 budgets but handed the portfolio to the 39-year-old after winning the territory election in October last year.
In his first mid-year budget update, the treasurer was forced to reveal that an "unexpected" increase in health demand had caused the deficit to blow out by more than 50 per cent to $971 million.
He's hoping the Commonwealth will boost hospital funding in an upcoming five-year extension to the National Health Reform Agreement with the states and territories, expected to be signed off on by the end of 2025.
But he's not just leaving the ACT's revenue challenges up to higher powers.
Mr Steel, who is also the territory's planning minister, is ploughing ahead with housing reforms aimed at lifting the supply of new homes over and above the 21,000 target the ACT has committed to over five years as part of the National Housing Accord.
The budget will contain $145 million to boost the number of homes built in the territory by 2030 to 30,000, including by increasing training subsidies for tradies, releasing more land for development, and streamlining planning laws to shorten the time it takes to get an approval.
As well as easing housing affordability, building more homes promises to deliver additional revenue for the government, including through increased payroll tax take and land taxes.
"I see the economic imperative, but also the moral imperative of providing more housing," he told AAP.
The move builds on changes to zoning rules to allow building so-called "missing middle" housing types - including townhouses and low-rise apartments - in areas previously prohibited, and a ban on third-party appeals that hobbled the delivery of new public housing.
Mr Steel also promised further funding to continue planning for the next phase of Canberra's light rail, with an extension from the city to the southern hub of Woden expected to be completed by 2033, as well as planning around future sporting needs.
Calls to replace the 50-year-old Canberra Stadium in Bruce have grown louder in recent years as signs of wear, including a recurring sewage stench permeating the change rooms in the bowels of the stadium, have proliferated.
But given its deteriorating fiscal conditions, it is unlikely the territory will be able to build a new stadium or its light rail extensions without more Commonwealth funding.
Tying new infrastructure funding to increased housing targets, for example, by upzoning around public transport hubs, could be a way to convince the federal government to help fund those projects.
"You can't build the housing unless you have the infrastructure there to support it," Mr Steel said.
"And so I think there's a recognition from the Commonwealth that they need to help to support the states and territories around some of that enabling infrastructure."
The ACT has a population of just over 475,500 people.
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