Page 3946 - Week 10 - Thursday, 28 August 2008
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mentoring service, Canberra BusinessPoint. The Live in Canberra campaign and the skilled and business migration program have proved to be very successful in meeting some of the skills shortages here in the ACT. These are important commitments delivered by the ACT Labor government.
Of course, most vital to our community is the issue of quality health care. Since coming to government we have doubled funding in public health to $889 million in this year’s budget and funded an additional 172 hospital beds. Consequently, we are achieving record levels of elective surgery. Our record in mental health shows that we have boosted funding by 143 per cent and introduced Australia’s first step-up, step-down facility for young people.
ACT Labor will continue to invest in health with a $90 million investment for a women and children’s hospital and more than $37 million for a suite of new mental health facilities. Residents of Gungahlin will be able to enjoy an $18 million health centre as a result of this ACT Labor government’s commitment. This is building on earlier health investments for a third linear accelerator at the Canberra Hospital to treat cancer patients, a new subacute care facility, a new paediatric waiting area, the allied health building at the University of Canberra and major investments in the establishment of the ANU Medical School to train our own doctors for our own community. We have opened a $9.75 million specialised unit for elderly patients at the Calvary Public Hospital and we have extended our services for older people through an increase in the capacity of the aged-care and rehabilitation services.
Finally, Mr Assistant Speaker, we have focused on healthy living. We have introduced the “Go for 2&5” fruit and vegetable campaign and the “Find thirty. It’s not a big exercise” campaign to encourage physical activity. These are all proud achievements of an ACT Labor government.
I would like to turn now to the issue of excellent education, quality teaching and skills development. An educated community, as far as Labor is concerned, is an empowered community. The ACT community enjoys these benefits that have been supported by our policies and investments. The number of Canberrans with post-school qualifications is up by almost 5.5 per cent.
We have undertaken a major renewal of our public school system by reducing class sizes in the early years of a child’s education. We have opened four new autism units and the government has undertaken significant investment in Indigenous education to the point that there is now little distinction at all between Indigenous and non-Indigenous literacy and numeracy in the early years of schooling. We are proud of these achievements in tackling disadvantage, but there is still more work to be done.
We are undertaking $90 million worth of refurbishments to every public school across the ACT. This is translating into new gyms, new performing arts centres, science laboratories and playground upgrades. The reforms we have undertaken have resulted in dedicated early childhood schools, a first in the nation. We have built new schools where the demographics have shown them to be needed, including Harrison primary school. The west Belconnen preschool to year 10 school will open next year, Gungahlin secondary college in 2010 and Tuggeranong preschool to year 10 school
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