Page 3218 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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The bill also earmarks resources for a range of initiatives that will improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for those among our Indigenous students who are not reaching their potential. There will be initiatives targeting students from kindergarten to year 4, greater support for students in year 6 as they make the transition to high school, and professional development programs for teachers at all schools. Overall, this bill will boost funding directed at Aboriginal disadvantage by more than $14 million over the budget and forward estimates period—the single largest investment in Indigenous affairs since self-government.
The initiatives funded in this appropriation bill are not whimsical or political. They are practical. They are strategic. They will directly improve the quality of life and the opportunities of many Canberrans. They will make us a fairer city, an even cleverer city and a city more conscious of its responsibilities. They will take the territory even further forward.
Some of the initiatives I announce today will involve investments in future years, too. That is deliberate, and it is meaningful. It is a signal of commitment, and a sign that these initiatives are grounded in deep value judgements about the kind of society we want to be. The commitments we make today will mean an investment of $81 million in recurrent and $28 million in capital costs across the budget and forward estimates period. That is an investment in the education of our children, in the health of our friends and neighbours, in our community and in the larger community of which we are each a small part. It is an investment that would not have been possible without the government’s pursuit of greater efficiency, and its determination to put the territory, once and for all, on a sound financial footing.
It is also an opportunity to restate this government’s belief that good government combines good fiscal management with an undeviating commitment to the things for which Labor has always stood: equality of opportunity, an intolerance of disadvantage and a belief in those bedrock institutions that deliver world-class public health and world-class public education. I commend this bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Mulcahy) adjourned to the next sitting.
Appropriation Bill 2007-2008 (No 2)
Reference to Standing Committee on Public Accounts
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (10.55): I seek leave to move a motion to refer the Appropriation Bill 2007-2008 (No 2) to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Leave granted.
MR MULCAHY: I move:
That, notwithstanding the provisions of standing order 174:
(1) the Appropriation Bill 2007-2008 (No 2) be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts for inquiry and report on the expenditure proposals contained and revenue estimates proposed therein, by 4 December 2007;
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