Page 1709 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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services and capabilities our city will need to grow into the future—and, most importantly, to grow sustainably into the future, for ours is a growing city.
Even with a marked slowdown in the level of public sector employment at the commonwealth level and the flow-through impact that is having on other parts of our economy, particularly in relation to demand for housing and consumer sentiment more broadly, we recognise in these budget papers that overall the economy will continue to grow, albeit at a much slower pace.
Our city will continue to grow as well. There will remain demand for housing. There will remain demand for better services and better transport infrastructure, and there will be a whole range of expectations around schooling, hospitals and health care, which are critical for the future of our city, its sustainability and its place as a fair city for Canberrans to grow up and live in.
I am particularly keen to focus this morning, therefore, on a number of important infrastructure projects and the next steps that are being supported in this budget.
The first, of course, is to acknowledge the ongoing work in relation to the development of new justice infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing city. The government has been working diligently over the last three to four years on developing and finalising its business case and its assessment of the need for new court facilities to meet the needs of our community. The ageing ACT Supreme Court building, first built in the early 1960s, has reached the end of its current functional life, and there is a need to upgrade and modernise our courts precinct to meet the needs of a growing population. That work continues to be supported through funding available in this budget and previous budgets.
The delivery of the territory’s first public-private partnership through the courts redevelopment project will give us a great opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of the PPP to deliver value for money, to deliver innovation and to create a modern courts precinct that will meet the needs of our community well into the future.
We need more modern justice infrastructure. The court is an aged building. We do not have enough jury courts to support the range of criminal trials with juries that are needed. We do not have adequate separation of the various parties who will appear in a courtroom. Whether that is keeping the accused separate from prosecutors and vulnerable witnesses, whether it is making sure that juries have adequate facilities to retire in and for refreshment, whether there are the right rooms available for lawyers to consult with their clients during a trial, or whether our judges and their support staff have adequate office accommodation to meet their needs both outside the courtroom and within it, there are compelling reasons for a redevelopment of the courts precinct.
That work now will continue to be progressed over the coming financial year, and we will see the development of a specific proposal that will allow our courts to be redeveloped and to deliver contemporary modern justice infrastructure for our city.
It is also worth focusing on the funding made available in this budget for the future development of the capital metro light rail project. This is a major infrastructure
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