Page 7 - Week 01 - Thursday, 4 November 2004
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prevention; and $2 million towards establishing new youth health centres in Belconnen and Tuggeranong.
Our commitment to education is centred on our belief that a fair and just society demands that every child have access to an excellent education. I believe that the most potent indicator of a community’s commitment to a fair go, to egalitarianism and to a fair and just society is its commitment to equality of access to education. Our commitment to ensuring that every child born into this community will have the same chance in life as every other child in this community is measured by our determination that they have access to the same quality of education. It is the single great leveller. We believe that no student should be denied a quality education simply because of their economic or family situation, and we believe that school funding should be based on need.
During the election, we promised to build on our record by increasing preschool hours for every four-year-old attending from 10½ to 12 hours a week, at a cost of $8 million; providing more than $12 million to high school education to increase the focus on pastoral care, student support and student welfare; establishing new student support funds in every government school so that all students have the opportunity to participate in school activities, regardless of the family’s capacity to pay; allocating $8 million to a school building renewal fund; providing $1.6 million over four years to expand the junior secondary bursary scheme to allow access to the scheme for students from disadvantaged backgrounds; and increasing funding for the CIT by $2 million to allow it to continue its role as our leading public vocational education and training provider.
In the area of disability, we pledged an extra $5.6 million to reduce long waiting lists by replicating the services offered by Sharing Places, to provide more support for young carers and to examine other housing models. In order to do more for children with serious disabilities and high complex needs, particularly autism, we promised to provide a further $4 million.
Since coming to office, my government has provided an extra $70 million for public and affordable housing, and we funded the development of the ACT’s first homelessness strategy. We will continue our commitment to this area by providing an extra $30 million over the next three years to boost public housing stock numbers and $4 million to increase the energy efficiency of existing Housing ACT properties.
We also committed to further reform of our legal system, to building a dragway, to revitalising our city centre, to upgrading Canberra’s convention facilities, to protecting our environment and to greening Canberra’s fastest growing area, Gungahlin. All of our commitments were well researched, genuine and affordable, and each will be met.
We will implement the Canberra plan. We will get on with the job of meeting the needs of the people of Canberra. We will put extra resources into the community’s highest priorities. We will continue to strive to move the barriers of inequality. We will seek to work with the community to implement our vision—a vision of a city that represents the very best in Australian creativity, lifestyle and sustainable development, a vision of a community in which everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential and to participate in the life of our community and society.
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