ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr says he has unfinished business in delivering infrastructure projects and taxation reforms, as he looks to extend his tenure in the territory's top job past the next election.
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![ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who has confirmed his intention to lead Labor to the next election. Picture: Janine Fabre ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who has confirmed his intention to lead Labor to the next election. Picture: Janine Fabre](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc75kzwdzkuhsgm53ab99.jpg/r0_184_3600_2216_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Mr Barr will hand down the ACT budget on Tuesday, his eighth since assuming the role of treasurer in 2011.
Speaking with The Canberra Times, Mr Barr confirmed he would deliver next year's ACT budget before leading Labor into the territory election in October.
If elected, he intended to remain in the role into a third term.
"All sorts of things can happen in life - heaven forbid I got sick or my parents got sick or there was some compelling reason [to not stay for a full term]," Mr Barr said.
"But from where I stand now, if you run you have the expectation that you don't leave.
"We haven't had anyone go full term this decade. Given all the churn in leadership in the nation, I think voters pretty well expect for you to do a full term."
Mr Barr, 46, is by far the ACT's longest-serving treasurer. Ted Quinlan is the next closest, having held the territory's purse strings for four years in the early 2000s.
"This will be my eighth budget. If you look around the country and historically, there are treasurers who have delivered 11 or 13 budgets," Mr Barr said.
"I certainly don't expect to be doing this role in 10 years time, but I will be delivering this year's budget and next year's budget."
Mr Barr said he remained motivated by the task of managing the 20-year program of reforms to the ACT's taxation system, which started in 2012.
The reforms have been heavily criticised by businesses hit hard by ballooning rates bills, but Mr Barr said the overhaul was necessary to ensure the territory had a "sustainable revenue base" for when it ran out of land and assets to sell.
He was also keen to see progress on the territory's pipeline of major infrastructure projects, which includes stage two of light rail and a new Civic sports stadium.
Mr Barr has previously been linked with a move to federal politics, and admitted to The Canberra Times that he did "weigh up the pros and cons" of putting his hand up to run in the redrawn seat of Canberra ahead of this year's election.
He did not divulge the exact reasons for not contesting preselection, but pointed out that territory politicians and federal MPs had very different roles and areas of influence.
"The longer I have been involved in the dynamic between the states and territories and the Commonwealth, the clearer it is to me that the bulk of the actual doing is undertaken at the state and territory level," he said.
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Mr Barr said he remained interested in federal issues, and would not rule out a move to Capital Hill in the future.
"I'm not going to rule things out categorically, but equally there are no vacancies and I'm not looking," he said.
"I've got a lot to do here, and I'm conscious that politics is not forever."
A professed rugby league fanatic as a child, and a lifelong supporter of Hawthorn in the AFL, Mr Barr said he was now spending more time indulging his growing passion for music and theatre.
In between completing the substantial reading requirements of a chief minister, he attempts to find time to churn through his own book list.
He's reading books by journalists David Marr and Kerry O'Brien, as well as the gay romance novel Call Me By Your Name.
Also on the go is Mark Manson's best-selling self-help book - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F---.