{"id":16052,"date":"2025-06-26T10:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/16052\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T10:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:37:09","slug":"back-to-the-drawing-board-act-greens-wont-support-proposed-health-levy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/16052\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Back to the drawing board&#8217;: ACT Greens won&#8217;t support proposed health levy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Labor&#8217;s budget plans have been thrown into doubt with the ACT Greens announcing they will not support a key proposed revenue-raising measure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">ACT Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury said his party would not support the <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-06-24\/act-budget-ratepayers-hit-with-new-healthcare-levy\/105454162\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/105454162\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed $250 health levy for all ratepayers<\/a> which he called an &#8220;unfair and regressive tax&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-06-26\/act-opposition-slams-budget-as-out-of-touch\/105462828\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8216;Real struggle for families&#8217;: Opposition slams ACT budget as out of touch <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Leanne Castley argues Labor&#8217;s &#8220;grand plans&#8221; have worsened the territory&#8217;s budget deficit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The proposed levy is expected to raise about $50 million per year for four years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The government is in minority and Labor needs either the support of the Liberals or the Greens to pass budget items through the Legislative Assembly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said the levy was unfair and the budget &#8220;missed the mark&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;A flat levy does not take into account a person&#8217;s ability to pay and does not reflect the type of city we want to build,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;It will unfairly impact a lot of people in our community.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mr Rattenbury said there was definitely a need to raise revenue to be able to pay for services \u2014 especially healthcare \u2014 but the levy would have a negative impact upon health.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;The irony is that this additional levy might be the difference between someone being able to buy essential medicine or healthy food \u2014 both key to maintaining good health \u2014 in order to fork out for the government&#8217;s health bill,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>  he said.Willing to negotiate<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-06-24\/five-key-takaways-2025-act-budget\/105454828\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Five key takeaways from the ACT budget<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Treasurer Chris Steel has used his first ACT budget to deal Canberrans a tough set of cards. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mr Rattenbury said his party would try to be constructive.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re certainly not voting down the whole budget,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>  he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;We hope to negotiate with the Labor Party on the budget.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mr Rattenbury said the Greens&#8217; proposed Big Corporations Tax was a fairer way to raise government revenue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Under the idea, a new, higher tax threshold would be introduced for big corporations like supermarkets, banks and airlines.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;We call on the Government to go back to the drawing board and come up with something fairer,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>  he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mr Rattenbury also said the Greens would oppose the $8 million subsidy for the horseracing industry included in the budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor&#8217;s budget plans have been thrown into doubt with the ACT Greens announcing they will not support a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4746,15973,4740,3232,4745,15975,425,728,50,15974,15972],"class_list":{"0":"post-16052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-act","9":"tag-act-greens","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-budget","12":"tag-canberra","13":"tag-healthy-levy","14":"tag-local","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-reply","18":"tag-shane-rattenbury"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114749233131298182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}