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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2039 ..

The ACT government has talked about our region becoming a technological powerhouse, like Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Bangalore or Washington. These success stories, however, resulted from governments facilitating venture capital investment, not directly providing the investment themselves. The government says it is confident that the people of the ACT have clever ideas with commercial potential. Trusting that the market will fund those projects if they are presented in the right way would actually be a real vote of confidence in local innovation.

The $10 million pledged to the commercialisation investment fund stands in stark contrast to the $133,000 dedicated to funding the community inclusion board and the community inclusion fund, which were meant to help all people reach their potential. That is an extra 42 cents going to all Canberrans so that they can reach their potential, while we are looking at providing $10 million to industry. I am not ignoring the $300,000 for the building a stronger community initiative but, in comparison, what we are spending on the implementation of social plan outcomes still represents only 4 per cent of the amount going to the commercialisation fund under the economic plan.

This appropriation bill seeks to fund the child and family centres that were part of the social plan, and I hope that these services will meet the needs of the sectors of the community that they are trying to meet and that they look at what is missing. There are a number of services in Gungahlin that are missing or that need to be expanded. The child protection review funded under the Chief Minister’s Department line item is obviously necessary after the events of the last number of months. I just hope that the government will fund the necessary recommendations that come out of that review, so that we are able to support children in need.

To turn to the line item under ACT Health, I have no doubt that pay increases agreed with nursing and clerical staff are justified, although I do not believe the enterprise bargaining offer to nurses made to date will make a difference to our acute nursing staff shortage. We currently do not offer nurses career advancement options that allow them to keep providing patient care.

Most nurses enter the profession because they want to work as healers, but they are then forced to merge that with administrative work just to earn a decent wage. The ACT government must acknowledge the need for a clinical career path to make the profession attractive in the long term. The pay for level 1 and level 2 registered nurses is still lower than it is interstate. Even a degree-qualified nurse with nine years experience earns less than the average wage in the ACT. These problems need to be addressed.

However, I support the increased allocation for visiting medical officers, reflecting the improved pay arrangements for our hospital specialists. The inequities in the pre-existing system certainly needed to be addressed, and I hope that the pay deal has done enough to increase the number of specialist training places, as our shortage of medical specialists is currently predicted to get worse rather than better.

In relation to the funding under the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services, I have no difficulty at all in supporting the extra $803,000 for disability support relief workers. The 16 per cent increase in costs does not appear excessive in the circumstances. The conversion of some casual workers to permanent status makes a lot

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