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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1581 ..

  • $305,000 for two projects to provide support to young indigenous people, particularly those at risk of substance abuse and those who come into contact with the justice system.

    • $330,000 for two projects to support young offenders addressing their offending behaviour, particularly young sex offenders.

    For families:

    • $90,000 for the well babies project, a program to promote health and wellbeing for mothers from the time of conception, especially to reduce alcohol and cigarette consumption during pregnancy.

    • $325,000 for a program to support early intervention for families with problematic substance abuse, and to provide community support for mothers and babies with special or complex needs.

    • $70,000 for a program to provide professional support and counselling to mothers suffering post-natal depression, and their families.

    • $80,000 for the good beginnings project, a way of providing volunteer home visits to families who need social support.

    Mr Speaker, I am also pleased to confirm that the proposed funding of $636,000 per year, contained in the draft budget, for substantial funding boosts for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service for early intervention services, is in addition to the building social capital initiatives, and is funded in this budget.

    Crime and Community Safety

    I turn to the issue of crime and community safety. In the draft budget the government announced two major issues aimed at fighting crime. The first was an increase of $4 million to the AFP budget to ensure the ACT community could take advantage of the productivity improvements in the AFP's certified agreement endorsed by the AFP's work force. This equates to around 40 extra police. Secondly, the government proposed committing $500,000 for safety cameras in Civic. I am pleased today to confirm that both these amounts remain in the budget. Indeed, Mr Speaker, I hope to call for tenders for the camera project in Civic within weeks.

    But the government is aware of the problems being caused to the community by significant rises in burglaries and car thefts across Canberra. There are those who think that they can profit from crime, and today I send the strongest possible signal to those people that a key feature of this budget is a multi-pronged approach to property crime. On top of the $4.5 million we committed in the draft budget, I am today announcing a further $5.5 million for spending on crime initiatives during the coming year. Those initiatives will principally centre on reducing crime in the key categories of burglaries and car thefts. This budget commits $10 million of new money to crime fighting and crime prevention initiatives.

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