How to answer “There’s no budget for it this year”

This is the objection you will hear most, and usually from someone who agrees with you. Budgets are set once a year, most lines are already committed, and new programs compete with everything else. So treat “no budget” as a question about where the money comes from, not a no.

What’s really behind “no budget”?

Usually one of three things: no line in this year’s budget, no clear owner, or no confidence the money will change anything. Each needs a different answer, so ask which one it is.

• No line this year. The money exists, but it’s committed. Answer with timing and a small start.
• No owner. Violence sits between nursing, safety, security and HR, so nobody’s budget feels responsible. Answer by naming the budget holder.
• No confidence. The executive has seen training that changed nothing. Answer with the evidence, honestly stated, and a measurement plan (see “Where’s the evidence?”).

How do you answer it?

Show the cost the service already carries. Violence is in the budget now; it’s just in the wrong lines.

• The liabilities are on the books. SA’s local health networks and SA Ambulance carried $228m in workers’ compensation liabilities at 30 June 2026, our sum of their audited figures (SA Auditor-General).
• Psychological injury costs more. Across the WorkCover Queensland scheme in 2025-26, a mental injury claim averaged $25,138 in statutory costs, almost twice a physical claim (WorkCover Queensland). These are scheme-wide figures, not health-only.
• Vacancies are expensive. NT Health reported about 208 nursing vacancies and about $66.2m spent on agency nurses in the reporting period (NT Estimates, June 2026). Every injury that keeps a nurse off adds to that gap.
• Claims are rising. In NSW, almost every local health district’s workers’ compensation contribution rose between 12% and 44% in 2024-25 (NSW Health financial statements). Your network’s figure is in its annual report, and on our open data page.
• One claim is expensive. A psychological injury claim averaged $189,845 in Victorian public hospitals, and those staff were off an average of 256 days (VAGO, 2023).
• Most of the cost never becomes a claim. After a violent incident, 28% of NSW nurses used their own sick leave and only 6.5% claimed workers’ compensation (NSWNMA, 2026). One Victorian service had 75 internal reports of occupational violence against 17 claims (VAGO, 2015). That absence is still paid for, in backfill, overtime and agency shifts.

Where can the money come from instead?

Name the budget before you’re asked. A request that says who pays is much easier to approve.

Two state-specific points. In WA, Health policy MP 0159/21 makes violence prevention training mandatory in high-risk areas, so it has to be funded from provider budgets anyway (WA Health). In Victoria, don’t plan on the recurrent Training and Development Funding: its 2026-27 guidelines exclude occupational violence and aggression training (Department of Health). Every route, state by state, is in Part 3: find the funding.

How do you turn it into a yes?

Ask for less, for a shorter time, with a clear measure. A pilot is easier to fund than a program, and its results fund the next step.

1. Pick one area with a clear problem and a willing manager: often a mental health unit or an emergency department with high code grey numbers.
2. Set a baseline from data you already collect: incidents, code greys or blacks, seclusion and restraint, claims and lost days.
3. Agree the 90-day and 12-month measures and who reports them, before the training starts.
4. Time the full request for the next budget cycle, with the pilot results attached. Part 4 covers when to submit and who decides.

Put it on one page with our business case template.

Other objections you might hear

All six on one page: answering objections to violence prevention training. To build the case from the start, begin with Part 1, the values case, or go straight to Part 2, the financial case.