I’m still buzzing from the busiest weekend of the campaign so far.

In just two days, Team Pocock held over 30 stalls and events all around the ACT.

Momentum is building. And it's only possible because of you and the 1300 Team Pocock volunteers who are donning shirts and signs and getting out there into the community to chat with your neighbours.

If you haven’t yet, you can still join Team Pocock as a volunteer!

And if you’d like to host a yard sign, just leave your details here and we’ll deliver a sign to your house.

I’m so grateful – I couldn’t do this without you.

Together, we really can clean up politics. And we must, because the government’s current dirty politics is hurting every Canberran.

Budget night

The Morrison government will drop their budget tonight.

Yesterday I called for the budget to prioritise community need over political expediency.

Because here in the ACT, we’re getting less than 1/5th of the infrastructure funding our population demands.

Source: AFR

Yes, you read that right.

Canberrans are dead last when it comes to the proportion of infrastructure spending we get compared to our population. For the nation’s capital territory, that’s simply not good enough. We need a budget that gives Canberra more than just bitumen.

Per capita isn’t the only measure of course, but anyway you look at it, especially on need, as a growing city we are missing out in a major way.

As Treasurer Josh Frydenberg straightens his tie to deliver his budget speech tonight, I’ll be watching very closely for telltale signs of crooked politics. I hope to be proven wrong, but it seems like we’ll get more of the same. More pork barrelling. More electioneering handouts for political donors. More band aids when bold cures exist.

We know that cost of living pressures are crushing the budgets of many students, families and households right now.

We need to be taking these issues seriously and taking meaningful action with longer term thinking, not throwing money at problems every election cycle.

I’ll soon be announcing policies that can really tackle the cost-of-living crisis, as well as acting on climate in a way that will deliver genuine savings for households.

I have also added my voice to the call for gender budgeting to be reinstated. Gender budgeting was developed here in Australia and is a proven, pragmatic way of ensuring better economic outcomes for women.

We need a budget based on the genuine needs of Australians. Unfortunately, if it’s anything like the Morrison government's infrastructure announcement yesterday, Canberra will be fed crumbs from the table.

I’ll be in touch later this week with further updates.

David

P.S. We’re at 1,300 Team Pocock volunteers already, with a goal to grow to 2,000 volunteers by the time the election is called. It could be any day now. You can sign up to join Team Pocock here, or forward this email to invite a friend. Thanks again!

Authorised by David Pocock for David Pocock, Canberra