Canberra businesses will be disappointed with the budget and confidence could take a hit from cutbacks in federal jobs and spending, Citadel Group managing director Miles Jakeman says.
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"Locally, business would be quite disappointed," Dr Jakeman says.
"There's not much in at all and there will be general flow-on consequences from the cuts in the Commonwealth funding and also what that means for the ACT government."
Citadel is the Canberra-based professional and managed services group but also has operations in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne that are diversified beyond the federal government.
Dr Jakeman said the budget contained two good initiatives for business, involving companies being able to offset a current year tax loss against tax paid in previous years and depreciation on assets for small businesses, but it was disappointing the reduction in company tax rates had not occurred.
Treasurer Wayne Swan said the "multi-speed economy is putting pressure on businesses that aren't in the fast lanes" and the government had responded by reducing the tax burden.
Dr Jakeman says the ACT economy will take a hit from the job cuts in the bureaucracy. About 4000 jobs will be lost in 2012-13, when military recruitment is excluded.
Based on 40 per cent of the federal bureaucracy being in Canberra, Dr Jakeman says the best scenario for job losses in the nation's capital will be about1600.
This is not counting the flow-on losses of private sector jobs.
"All in all, this 'benefits of the boom' budget has bypassed the Bush Capital," he says.
