Page 1410 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 June 2007
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four years—$23.2. million in 2007-08, $22.4 million in 2008-09, $22.9 million in 2009-10 and $22.8 million in 2010-11.
This spending is strategically targeted at areas of high need and emerging environmental challenge. Areas such as services for people with a disability, addressing climate change, improving housing affordability, boosting ambulance and fire services, addressing skill shortages, supporting business, and delivering municipal services.
Areas that must grow, to meet growing needs, will continue to grow—but more cleverly, more strategically. For example, the budget allocates almost $70 million to extra health services over four years—$15.4 million in 2007-08, $16.5 million in 2008-09, $17.1 million in 2009-10 and $17.9 million in 2010-11. These investments are in line with the parameters we have prudently built into our forward estimates as part of our structural reforms.
The priorities will be additional hospital beds, expanding aged care and rehabilitation services, boosting mental-health services, expanding youth health services, reducing waiting lists for dental services, preventing chronic disease, supporting children and families at risk of dysfunction, and reducing elective surgery waiting lists—a total of $66.8 million over four years.
The forecast surpluses also give the government the capacity for investment—investment in the suburbs where Canberrans live and play, investment in the roads upon which they commute, investment in public transport, investment in the amenity of the town centres where they congregate for work and communion.
The total value of capital works in this budget is $288.7 million. This includes the capital upgrades program, which will be expanded in 2007-08 by an additional $12.2 million—an increase of 38 per cent. A further $5 million will be allocated to repairs and maintenance across facilities all over the territory—the kind of minor works that make a real difference: painting, fixing, keeping up the fabric of our community life.
Total cash allocated for new capital works and works in progress in 2007-08 is $420 million.
Mr Speaker, this is a substantial investment in the city. It is an investment that will make Canberra an even better place in which to live. It is an investment that will “Take the territory forward”—one park, one shopping centre refurbishment, one school gymnasium, one bus shelter at a time.
This is an investment in the infrastructure we use every day and often take for granted: roads, bridges, stormwater systems, health facilities.
It is also an investment in the kind of city we have become culturally and socially. It is an investment in public art, in swimming pools, in open parks and public places. It is an investment in the livability of our city.
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