Budget Mid Year Review

E&C Report Clause A

Speech to Council Chambers, delivered by Councillor Seal Chong Wah on 24th February 2026

I am speaking to the E & C Information Report Clause A: the budget mid-year review.

This budget review highlights the trend of this Council for years. Cuts, and austerity.

This year's budget, that we are reviewing today, cut 34% of funding for stormwater drain upgrades, 29% of the stormwater maintenance budget, and 44% of funding for new parks, park upgrades and major park maintenance, just to name a few.

This follows the 2024/2025 budget, where this administration cut Council’s workforce by 500 staff and halved ferry service to Milton, the year after this administration cut 400 million dollars, as in 10% of the entire city’s budget, mid-year. 

Before that, this LNP administration decided it could no longer fund the West End to Toowong green bridge.

Here’s what these constant budget cuts mean in the real world...

I’m waiting on understaffed teams to progress local capital projects from my Suburban Enhancement Fund, like many Councillors in this chamber. 

I have no doubt that the major reduction in council staff, and so many in acting or temporary positions, mean they are struggling to design and build basic projects.

I’m waiting 3 to 6 months for replies from the understaffed Transport Assets and Operations team about road and intersection problems as simple as yellow lines. 

I had to wait 10 months just to find out if a Speed Awareness Monitor location had been considered before.

I’m waiting for call backs that I barely ever receive about tree health checkups and trimming requests.

My office and I aren’t contacting these teams for fun. 

We’re advocating for residents who have already been let down by the Council process. Residents have done the right thing by calling up the hotline asking for footpath repairs or tree trims, or intersection buildouts. 

They’ve kept their reference number, and waited for updates. 

They’ve watched deadlines come and go, and their jobs closed without the job being done. I’ve seen a resident wait 2 and a half YEARS for a simple footpath repair request.

For almost the entire time I’ve been a Councillor, organisational reviews and staff restructurings have been running across many Council teams. 

They’ve been sold as ‘reducing duplication’, but we can see that underlying these reviews are reductions in roles and staff, causing unease and more stress that is also making other staff want to leave.

This makes everybody left, do more with less. 

When I try to escalate resident problems, I encounter more acting managers than actual managers, because the restructuring never seems to end.

This is what austerity feels like.

This LNP Council administration is so excited to give big developers discounts and handouts to bolster their record profits, and won’t make them pay their fair share into Brisbane. 

Even when this Council's budget isn’t balanced, they don’t push for developers to pitch in.

It’s the Council services and staff that get cut. 

Again, and again!

Every time this Council reduces staff, it cuts its own capacity. 

The Council can’t deliver the same basic services, and instead opts to pay private contractors from the public purse to do the work that Council staff used to do.

Now that the Council has cut its expertise, contractors can charge the public more for the same services. 

Everything becomes more expensive, less transparent, and less accountable.

And when our public services are cut because there aren’t enough staff or contracting costs too much, the highest impact is felt by the people of Brisbane and obviously hitting people with the least. 

People who rely on libraries and playgrounds to help raise their children. 

People who can’t get slots in Rhyme Time sessions after this Council cut a quarter of these sessions.

This LNP should NOT be proud of this budget! 

Shame on this LNP administration!