Page 3474 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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including the 2017-18 second appropriation. These major works included $41.9 million for a new school in Molonglo, with additional funding provisioned centrally; $19.8 million for more places in Gungahlin; and $18.8 million for modernisation of Campbell Primary School.
On safer families, I welcome the government’s further commitment this year, which goes towards making families, particularly women and children, safer. Everyone in this place knows that in 2016 we made a firm commitment through our government response to family violence. This is work that will deliver a quick fix to this problem. Those who work in the sector and with families impacted by violence know this very well.
The government also know this, and that is why we are not interested in just creating news headlines in this space. A good news headline is great, but what we are doing is committing to a long-term sustained change in the way that we deal with this issue. It will take time. By now, I am sure that the opposition understand it. The government’s $24.1 million safer families package is now in its third year. This package supports the implementation of those major commitments made through the ACT government response to family violence.
The 2018-19 budget includes a further $9.3 million over four years for initiatives that complement the safer families package. This work is going across the whole of government and in the community because, as we have said many times, the change can only occur if we all work together across the whole service sector as well as the community.
One of the priorities for the government this year is to finalise and start to roll out the front-line worker training strategy to build that enduring core capability for front-line workers across the health, education, community services and justice sectors. But the flagship initiative that we continue to maintain solid support for across our community is the co-design and launch of the family safety hub, with an investment of $5.96 million over four years. The first challenge for the safety hub is to look at how to better support women and families during pregnancy and early parenting. I am looking forward to making further announcements about the next phase of these challenges over coming weeks.
Additional funding for front-line services to respond to increased demand for domestic and family violence support has been provided from 2018-19 with an additional $1.7 million over four years for the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre and the Domestic Violence Crisis Service. We also provided additional investment of $6.5 million to our specialist homelessness services to provide additional crisis accommodation and support for women and children escaping violence.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to once again thank Mr Pettersson for bringing on this motion and giving us the chance to talk about these important issues in the ACT community and how the ACT’s budget is truly a community-focused budget and will make the lives of those who live in our beautiful city even better.
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