Page 3005 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 September 1993
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Under the national child care strategy, 300 new outside-school-hours care places will be jointly funded with the Commonwealth on a year round basis, thereby increasing the number of vacation care places. A further 55 long-day care places will be provided in Tuggeranong. The budget provides funding for youth services and the new youth resource centre to be built at Tuggeranong. The immunisation programs for children will be expanded. There will be a catch-up program for infants who did not qualify for HIB vaccine. A new measles, mumps and rubella vaccine will be available for all Year 6 schoolchildren.
Madam Speaker, business will continue to receive our support to expand and create jobs in the ACT. In 1992-93 we achieved some important outcomes in stimulating business development in Canberra. Besides the opening of the interim casino, support was provided to a number of high-tech and research firms. The Canberra investment promotion program, which I launched earlier this year, will market the ACT as an attractive place to do business, and we must continue to provide a conducive environment for business expansion.
The tourism industry provides a strong stimulus to jobs growth in Canberra and it will continue to receive the generous support of government. The ACT Tourism Development Unit set up in last year's budget played an important role in increasing visitor numbers by assisting in the staging of major events. Accordingly, the Government has decided to provide further funding to the development unit this year. Further funding will also be provided to assist industry to locate or to expand here where relocation would not otherwise occur and the interests of the Territory will be clearly served. The Government will follow the principle that a system should be open and transparent so that the community can judge the benefits.
A wide-ranging capital works program amounting to $118.8m is funded by this budget. In addition, this year the ACT Housing Trust will spend $27.5m on capital works and ACTEW $42.3m. An amount of $7.5m will also be spent on refurbishing the Kurrajong Hotel to become the international hotel school. In total, this work amounts to almost $200m of ACT public sector capital works expenditure, which will support about 3,000 jobs. The size of this program, whilst slightly smaller than last year, has been carefully framed in the light of the expanded Commonwealth public works recently announced for Canberra. Together, this public sector activity is expected to underwrite an increase in building and employment in the Territory in 1993-94.
The budget funded works cover widespread aspects of Canberra's cultural and economic fabric. I will outline only some of the key works approved for commencement in this budget. An Aboriginal keeping place and cultural centre will be established at a cost of $2.5m in recognition of the International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples. The budget funds further development of parks, reserves and public areas. New works to provide infrastructure in Gungahlin will be commenced, totalling $7m, with a further amount of nearly $10m on development in West Belconnen, Tuggeranong and other areas. Sports facilities totalling $2.9m will be built, involving district playing fields in South Tuggeranong, a Canberra softball centre at Hawker, and new facilities at Boomanulla Oval.
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