Brisbane home owners will face a general 3.97 per cent rate hike, with Brisbane City Council attributing it to rising fuel costs and war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The council handed down its rate hike today in its “sensible” 2026 budget, which was characterised by further cuts and austerity measures.<\/p>\n
The $3.9 billion budget is about $200 million smaller than last year’s budget, which in turn was $200 million smaller than the one handed down in 2023.<\/p>\n
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said Brisbane’s budget was “hit hard” by the cost of natural disasters such as Cyclone Alfred and a lack of funding from the state and federal governments.<\/p>\n
“We’re not in ordinary times, and those ordinary times haven’t existed since the pandemic,” Cr Schrinner said.<\/p>\n
“Despite these challenges, the budget I’m presenting today is balanced, it’s responsible, and keeps costs down for residents.”<\/p>\n
The 3.97 per cent rate hike is below Brisbane’s inflation rate, which is about 4.6 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n
Council fees and charges will increase by an average of 4.8 per cent.<\/p>\n
The council is not borrowing money for the first time in nearly a decade, promising to repay $557 million in debt over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
Unlike previous years, there were no major sweeteners or infrastructure projects included in this year’s budget.<\/p>\n
Minor items include $5.6 million for free outdoor wellness and mindfulness classes, $110 million for road resurfacing, and $135 million for Story Bridge repairs.<\/p>\n
Story Bridge bill soars<\/p>\n
Today, the council released an update on its Story Bridge business case, which calculates the bridge needs $1.35 billion in repairs ahead of the 2032 Olympics.<\/p>\n
It says the full cost of a renewal would be $3.6 billion over 20 years.<\/p>\n
Previous independent reports commissioned by the council estimated the cost would be $350 million, based on similar bridges in other countries.<\/p>\n
The council says it will formally seek an 80\/10\/10 funding split: 80 per cent from the federal government, 10 per cent from the state, and 10 per cent from the council.<\/p>\n
When asked what would happen to the bridge if the state and federal government did not contribute 90 per cent of the funding, Cr Schrinner insisted that they would.<\/p>\n
Cr Schrinner ruled out putting a toll on the bridge to pay for the repairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane home owners will face a general 3.97 per cent rate hike, with Brisbane City Council attributing it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[357610,64,63,651,357611,14005,99,14825,58942],"class_list":["post-741604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-2026-2027-budget","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brisbane","tag-brisbane-budget","tag-brisbane-city-council","tag-business","tag-rates","tag-story-bridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}