The last few years have been difficult for small business owners such as the Winstanley family, making this year's budget crucial to ease the cost of living.
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Luke and Belinda Winstanley have both kept their own businesses afloat throughout lockdown in the information technology industry and tourism consulting services.
"From our perspective, Belinda and I are both small business owners and have been for 20 years and so it's us as small business owners so you know I run my own company and Belinda runs her own company so she and I are the companies and we consult into organisations and so I guess that's our working life, " Mr Winstanley said.
For Mr Winstanley, his organisation in technology services remained relatively stable throughout the pandemic due to online services, however Mrs Winstanley suffered significantly due to working in contracting tourism.
"It definitely hurt but the ACT government and the federal government were great with programs like JobKeeper," she said.
Looking into the future though, Mrs Winstanley hopes the budget will be able to give an extra boost to tourism due to how much the industry has suffered through the pandemic and the additional pressures brought on by the war in Ukraine.
"The number of tourism operators that are hurting around the country, not just here in ACT but just around the country, is unfathomable, so definitely support to help get the operators to get back up and running and to get people to them would be incredible," she said.
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The family hopes to see greater support for their businesses as local operators through federal support.
"We're not the big end of town we're the small operators running businesses, employing very few people but from a crisis around the world from a pandemic it didn't absolutely knock us out but it certainly made life a lot harder," Mr Winstanley said.
The struggles small businesses faced in combination with the increased cost of living has led to the Winstanley family focusing on how they can continue living sustainably.
"We've got a small family, got a daughter 19 and a daughter 15 and I guess we're just running our lives as normal people, whatever normal means and I guess we're just trying to make sure we get a healthy balance of work and family life and recreation and the ability to share time," Mr Winstanley said.
Fuel prices and cost of living has raised further concern for the family in living life and running their businesses.
"When you see the price of fuel has absolutely gone up in the last few weeks and I hear my daughter's moaning about the cost of fuel because they're out and about," Mrs Winstanley said.
It has caused the family to start thinking further on how they spend their money, through taking less trips away, with whatever support to be given out in the budget an added bonus.
"I guess our family's unique in that we're both self employed, so no work, no pay, so we are probably a bit more on the frugal side of putting money away just because we don't have that support network of having an employer pay our entitlements to sick days, holiday days and unexpected shutdowns," Mrs Winstanley said.
"So we're probably a bit more conservative when it comes to that kind of stuff."
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Olivia Ireland
Olivia is a reporter for the Canberra Times. She has covered federal politics and public sector, court and crime, local news, arts, education and business. Olivia started as an intern in August 2021 and began her career with the Times after completing her studies in November 2021.
Olivia is a reporter for the Canberra Times. She has covered federal politics and public sector, court and crime, local news, arts, education and business. Olivia started as an intern in August 2021 and began her career with the Times after completing her studies in November 2021.
