Page 2946 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 16 October 2007
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years, from 2006-07, to reduce the number of patients waiting for elective surgery and increase the number of elective procedures. In February 2007, work was completed on a new $9.75 million specialised unit for elderly patients at Calvary Hospital, including a 20-bed psychogeriatric unit that will care for older patients with acute mental illness and challenging behaviour.
The government will continue to ensure that health expenditure grows at a sustainable rate, that resources are better targeted to ensure that patients receive the most appropriate care in the most appropriate setting and that we are able to respond to areas of emerging pressure, including mental health, cancer service and aged care. Health workforce recruitment and retention are significant issues in the ACT, as in the other states and territories. The government has committed $4.2 million to develop strategies for dealing with workforce shortages and will continue to participate in national processes designed to address the issue.
The capacity of our community is enhanced whenever high levels of school completion and educational outcomes are achieved. To meet the needs of the community in the 21st century we must ensure that education is contemporary, relevant and challenging; that there are flexible learning pathways; and that we promote lifelong learning. The ACT is the most highly educated community in the country. More children in the ACT attend prior-to-school programs; and the territory has the highest year 12 retention rate, the highest population with post-school qualifications and the greatest percentage of young people attending university. ACT students continue to maintain high levels of performance against the numeracy benchmarks and the nationally agreed literacy benchmarks for years 3, 5 and 7. It is clear that the ACT public education system has historically been of high quality, with a strong philosophy of meeting the diverse needs of all students and helping all students reach their potential.
However, with an ageing and mobile population, this government has had to undertake some difficult but necessary structural reforms in order to ensure that high quality public schools will be available for all Canberra’s school students now and into the future. These reforms saw the maintenance of the schooling models previously available and a renewed focus on early childhood education. The government announced new preschool to year 2 schools to concentrate on early years of schooling and also announced the amalgamation of all preschools into primary schools, to streamline learning pathways and provide better educational transitions. As part of this major reform, the government is investing over $175 million in building new state-of-the-art schools in Gungahlin, Harrison, west Belconnen and Tuggeranong; $90 million for upgrading existing schools; and $20 million for new information technology for schools.
The achievements of this government in respect of housing are considerable. Canberrans have seen a $33 million capital injection for social housing; continued accommodation support for the most vulnerable; assistance to people moving from crisis accommodation to sustainable housing options; a 207 per cent increase in government funding for homeless families, compared to an increase of 18 per cent nationally; and the launch of the ACT affordable housing action plan.
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