Page 1418 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 June 2007
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Critical care capacity will be increased, with the creation of an additional intensive care unit bed at a cost of around $5 million over four years. This investment will help meet the growing demand for trauma care and complex care.
Demand for elective surgery continues to grow—and will keep growing into the future, as we age as a community. Over the past four years the government has invested almost $22 million in additional elective surgeries. The results are clear for the community to see: record levels of elective surgery in each of those years and almost 5,000 additional operations over the period than would otherwise have been possible.
The 2007-08 budget allocates a further $10.5 million over four years, to boost the number of elective surgery procedures by a further 300 a year. A tenth operating theatre at the Canberra Hospital will be commissioned to cope with this additional activity.
In addition, the budget allocates funding for an integrated response to patients with chronic conditions, targeted support for at-risk mothers and babies and increased access to dental health care.
Excellence in education
Mr Speaker, one of the most significant financial and social investments a community makes in its future comes in the shape of government schools.
Philosophically, practically and financially, Labor’s commitment to public education in the ACT has never been equalled in our history.
As in so many areas, when it comes to public schooling we confront the consequences of a physical infrastructure designed for another age, another Canberra. In last year’s budget we tackled some of those infrastructure issues, but we also set out a vision, and we backed that vision up with a financial investment in our government schools greater than any investment made in the past two decades.
This included $90 million for capital upgrades of our government schools, as well as $20 million for improvements in information and communications technology. More than $67 million was earmarked for new, state-of-the-art schools across Canberra—an investment of more than $177 million in the future of every child who attends an ACT government school.
Today, I announce that Labor will build on this deep commitment, committing $60.7 million for the construction of the secondary college in Gungahlin, to open in 2010. And I announce an additional $50 million for the construction of a new P to 10 school in Tuggeranong, to open in 2011.
And it is not just the students at these new sites who will be winners. To ensure that the facilities at every one of Canberra’s public schools are a matter for pride and are capable of delivering the best possible education, we will continue to make available $11.6 million a year for capital upgrades.
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