Page 1937 - Week 06 - Thursday, 9 June 2016
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life before politics instilled in me the important principle that you put your people first and you leave no-one behind.
That important principle has stayed with me and it shapes the way that I view my duty to our community. So it is that my vision is to create a better future for all Canberrans, not just for the select few. To achieve that vision, my priorities are to fix our health system. We will invest in education. We will build our city. We will grow our economy. We will leave no-one behind. That is our underlying principle, and it is possible to do.
It can be done if you put all Canberrans ahead of the insiders. It is possible if you spend your resources for the benefit of all. To put it simply, because we will not waste $1.65 billion on a tram, we can fix the health system, we can invest much, much more into education, we can support better programs throughout our community and we do not need to triple your rates. Madam Speaker, they are my priorities. I have expressed them before and I will keep doing so up until the day of the election. And if we form government they will be the priorities that inform my government.
Investing in our children’s future and our education system is a fundamental priority for us and, although we are a lucky community, in many ways there are too many children being left behind. They are facing disadvantage. When we see a child in a cage in our schools that has been paid for with taxpayer money, it is clear something has gone terribly wrong.
We need more help for children with disabilities and we need better prevention and early intervention options for children in crisis. I am proud to announce today that under a Hanson Liberal government we will deliver an $85 million package to provide more support for children in our public specialised schools, to provide better support for public school infrastructure and support for children who need additional learning support across the non-government sector.
We know that children with high needs across our four specialised schools need as much support as we can provide. The Woden School, Malkara, Black Mountain and Cranleigh, we will provide an additional $7.5 million package that will provide an extra $4 million for important infrastructure and capital upgrades and an additional $1 million a year in ongoing funding to support staff. We will work with the directorate and the school leaders and, importantly, with parents to make sure that this extra money makes the real difference needed to ensure that our children facing challenges get the help that they need.
Madam Speaker, we must repair the damage that was done to our public school system when Mr Barr, as education minister, closed 23 Canberra public schools. We must make sure that our school system has adequate capacity and make sure that our schools are being maintained properly as core businesses.
So I announce today that under a Liberal government we will increase funding for public school capacity, building, infrastructure and maintenance across our existing public schools by an additional $60 million. We will work with the directorate and school communities to allocate resources where the need is greatest so that our children are not in overcrowded classrooms or in rundown school facilities.
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