Page 2311 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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To all of Canberra now, I want to say to all of you that this has been an incredibly tough year for everyone. I acknowledge the hard work that everybody has done. We have all stuck together incredibly well. We have stayed strong. I want to pass on my thoughts and wishes to everybody in what has been a difficult year. I particularly want to say that to the students and young people across our school system who have found it particularly challenging. They have worked so hard and I wish them all the best. My message to them is that they will all be okay and things will get better from here. There is so much to look forward to.
Thank you all again. Good luck, and have a great election campaign. See you all back here soon.
MISS C BURCH (Kurrajong) (7.56):
Government has a duty to ensure that ACT taxpayers are receiving value for money, and at the moment we are not. In fact, it often seems that ACT taxpayers are receiving far less value for money than any other state or territory.
In our schools we are spending more per student than most other states, yet our NAPLAN results are worse than similar schools in similar areas. In our hospitals we are spending more per person than any other jurisdiction, yet our emergency waiting times remain second worst in the country. In our prisons we are spending 50 per cent more per inmate per day than the national average. In homelessness services we are spending more per person than all other states—
and territories—
yet last year a third of people seeking services were turned away.
If these words sound familiar that is because I spoke them 926 days ago in this place, when I was privileged to give my inaugural speech. Disappointingly, they ring just as true today as they did then. You could have been mistaken, Madam Speaker, for expecting that a government that just loves to throw around words like “progressive” and “nation-leading” may have actually tried to achieve something in the past 2½ years. Disappointingly, they have not. Disappointingly, those opposite have made it worse.
Our education system is still the most expensive per capita in the country, and our children’s results have not improved. Our health system is still among the most expensive but our hospital waiting times have now become the worst in the country. Our doctors are being chronically underpaid, and endemic cultural issues within our public health system remain.
We have fewer police per capita than we did in 2018, and our jail is at capacity. The ACT has the highest proportion of lower income families paying more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. We now have the highest median rents in the country and among the least affordable land to purchase. The number of Canberrans living on the poverty line has grown to over 36,000 and we have the highest rate of repeat homelessness in Australia.
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