Ms Lee said Canberrans had a right to ask where the money had gone, after net debt was forecast to grow from $6.524 billion in 2022-23 to $9.882 billion in 2025-26.

"Today, we have seen yet another budget handed down by the Chief Minister full of spin and announcements that only highlight the significant failures of this government over the last decade," Ms Lee said.

"With our health system at breaking point, our education system failing, basic city services not up scratch and the ACT in a housing crisis, this Labor-Greens government continually fails to deliver.

"This is an underwhelming budget; a budget that is business as usual for a tired, complacent government that long ago stopped governing in the best interests of Canberrans."

Meanwhile, the ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury, who sits on the committee that formulates the budget, said his party would seek to amend the budget for the first time since governing with Labor with a vote on the floor of the Legislative Assembly.

"This is not the exact budget that the Greens would deliver if we were in a Greens-led government. We work in a power-sharing, collaborative government that involves debate and compromise," Mr Rattenbury said in a statement.

"There are some elements of this budget that we do not support, such as the $41 million subsidy from ratepayers to the horse-racing industry."

Ms Lee used a motion in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday afternoon, before the budget was released, to call on the government to commission an audit of public finances.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said such an audit would be used to identify what government spending should be cut and Ms Lee should outline what a Canberra Liberals government would cut if elected.

MORE BUDGET NEWS:

Following the release of the budget at 5pm, Ms Lee criticised the government for what she said was systematic cuts to health funding since 2015-16.

"It is astounding this government continues to spruik the hospital expansion every budget that was promised a decade ago, while Canberra continues to have the longest emergency department wait times in the country and a health system in crisis," she said.

Ms Lee also reiterated her criticism of the ACT government's land release policies, which prioritise dwellings in urban infill sites rather than detached housing on greenfield development blocks.

"What we do know is the Labor-Greens government plan to deliver 17 fewer dwellings in this new land release program than what was previously promised; Canberrans deserve genuine choice when it comes to housing options and Labor along with the Greens are failing to provide it to our community," she said.

"Canberrans deserve so much more than they are getting under this government and I hold serious concerns about what impact this continued mismanagement will have for the people of Canberra."

Mr Barr told a press conference on Tuesday there was not a lot of land within the ACT available for urban sprawl and the government had had an infill policy for creating space for new dwellings for two decades.

"There just isn't single residential land available. I can't magic up more land in Yarralumla, or Turner or Braddon. The only new housing that can be built in those sorts of suburbs has to be of a higher density. And we can't sprawl outwards, forever. We know the limits of the territory's boundaries," he said.

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