Page 2400 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2022
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MR PETTERSSON: Thank you Madam Speaker. Minister, how do all these investments link with the current health infrastructure across the Territory?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Thank you Madam Speaker. I thank Mr Pettersson for the supplementary.
These investments build on the $624 million Canberra Hospital expansion project, the biggest health infrastructure investment since self-government. This project has already delivered new facilities across the Canberra Hospital campus including Building 8, which houses the new clinic for the Canberra Sexual Health Centre, and expanded staff facilities.
The project is also delivering at pace the new critical services building, with state-of-the-art facilities that deliver more operating theatres, more speciality services, and more in-patient beds. In the 2021-22 mid-year budget review, we invested almost $12 million in expenses and $6.3 million in capital to ensure that we could continue to support the planning and operational commissioning activities required to open this new facility in 2024.
This work is just part of a number of projects that we have delivered, such as the ICU expansion; and all that we are delivering right now, such as the expansion of the Centenary Hospital for women and children, the Yamba Drive carpark, the new community based facilities, and planning for the north side hospital.
Madam Speaker, anyone driving past the Canberra Hospital will see how the campus is being transformed. This work is supporting our commitment to continue expanding health services to support local businesses and of course, it will be the first all-electric hospital building, powered by 100% renewable electricity, in the country.
Budget—schools
MR HANSON: My question is to the minister for education. Minister, in response to the ACT budget, the ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations said that the territory was, and I will quote, “only funding what was urgently needed, not what will be required in the long term”. They further said:
… parents want quality school expansions where needed, not just the addition of transportable classrooms. We are concerned that this is not forward thinking enough.
Minister, how long will transportable classrooms—or modular learning centres, I think you called them—be used in ACT schools as a stopgap for long-term solutions?
MS BERRY: Modular learning units, which is how they are described online and from the companies that build them—
Mr Hanson: Not by the P&C they’re not.
MS BERRY: Those units are described as modern learning units. That is the
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