Page 414 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 February 2013
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100 new places and assist with the transitioning of the national quality framework. We will release at least three additional sites for the construction of new childcare centres in areas of high demand.
We are also committed to fulfilling our election commitments to continue to improve our early childhood outcomes and give our children the best start in life. We will be providing 90 additional scholarships at a cost of $740,000 to help early childhood educators gain a certificate III in children’s services. And $4.5 million over two years will allow the creation of up to 100 childcare places by upgrading childcare centres across Canberra. You will see the benefits of these new initiatives in future reports on government services.
I am also pleased to see some outstanding results for our police and emergency services. In 2011-12, satisfaction with overall police services, 75.6 per cent, perceptions of police integrity, 79.6 per cent, and professionalism, 89.3 per cent, all exceeded the Australian national average.
In 2011-12 community perceptions on safety, both at home and in public places, showed positive results for the ACT.
Results for road safety in the ACT were generally positive, with the proportion of drivers not wearing a seatbelt and the recorded number of road deaths per 100 registered vehicles below the national average. Road safety is an area to which the ACT government and ACT Policing are extremely committed. The government’s goal is to alter the community’s attitude when it comes to antisocial driving by developing strategies which aim to lower the road toll and limit the number of serious injury collisions.
The report highlights a number of areas for improvement in the ACT. As we have heard from the Chief Minister, we are working on that.
On emergency services, ACT Fire and Rescue was best in the country for containing structure fires to the object or room of origin. The report found that ACT firefighters were able to prevent fires from spreading beyond the room or item they started in 85.8 per cent of the time.
For 2011-12 the ACT Ambulance Service reported the best code 1 emergency response times at the 90th percentile for both statewide and capital city indicators despite continuing increases in the level of demand. The government has responded to these increases in demand, with an additional two 24/7 emergency ambulance crews introduced in 2011-12 to ensure that our services remain the best in the country.
The Emergency Services Agency finalised a strategic study of current and future locations of all emergency response facilities, to optimise the agency’s responsiveness to the community. As a result, funding was allocated in the 2012-13 budget for the construction of new emergency service facilities in Charnwood.
On justice, the government has prioritised reducing the backlog in the Supreme Court through our Supreme Court blitz—you may have heard a bit of that earlier—the
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