On the upside, stamp duty will be abolished for first-home buyers with a household income of less than $160,000 from July 1 under this week's budget.

This, when taken in conjunction with first-home buyer incentives flagged during the federal election campaign, will make it easier for many Canberrans to buy a home.

The elimination of an arbitrary and one-off tax grab that unduly targeted young buyers at the most financially stressful time of their lives was made possible by moving towards a universal, and more equitable, system based on residential and commercial rates, land taxes and lease variations.

This transition, in progress since 2012, has been a cornerstone of the Gallagher-Barr governments.

Financial experts, including UNSW Canberra finance professor Satish Chand, have endorsed it on the grounds of efficiency and the ease with which such charges can be administered. It is also in line with what the then federal treasurer, Peter Costello, was advocating at the turn of the century when the GST took effect.

Under that deal states and territories were supposed to phase out a raft of indirect and hidden taxes in exchange for dividing 100 per cent of the GST take between them.

Professor Chand said such measures made more sense here than almost anywhere else in Australia because Canberra's leasehold land title system gives our bureaucrats "unparalleled control over ... urban planning, development, land use and land taxation".

While all of the above is good news for the ACT government, and for ACT first-home buyers, it has not been such a welcome development for existing home owners, almost all of whom would have paid stamp duty when they bought their properties.

Many, particularly the elderly on fixed incomes, are struggling to keep up with a succession of year-on-year rate rises that have been well above inflation.

The next round of hikes, which also take effect on July 1, are 7 per cent for houses and 11 per cent for units respectively.

This is almost six times the current 1.9 per cent inflation rate for units and more than three times that rate for houses.

While it is good to know the rate of land tax increases will start to slow down in the coming years, that is cold comfort for those struggling to make ends meet right now and facing another hefty hike.

According to Professor Chand the biggest weakness of current tax policy is that more than 50 per cent of the territory's total tax take comes from property rates, levies and charges.

When taken into account with the money generated through the sale of a finite supply of land, the government has a lot of eggs in the property basket.

Future budgets could be threatened by the withdrawal of investment capital from the ACT due to a perception property costs were far too high and a drift of home buyers to NSW.

It is imperative the government continues to work to grow the ACT's private sector through promoting the establishment or relocation of new industries and businesses within our borders.

A truly diverse economy would be much more resilient than one based on land sales, property taxes and the ebbs and flows of funding within the public sector.