Page 1532 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 7 May 2008
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Community organisations have indicated both in budget consultations and in other forums how highly they value the amenity of their city and neighbourhoods. Improving public transport was a key priority of many organisations. Those are certainly things that I have picked up through my mobile offices—the need to improve the amenity of the city and neighbourhoods and our public transport system. Many community organisations supported access to affordable and convenient public transport in the ACT. These groups proposed solutions such as increasing the number of buses, improving the public transport network through an updated timetable and concessional travel for older members of the community.
Community events and festivals, libraries and sporting facilities also featured in a number of community organisations’ recommendations. The government has provided all of these with additional funding in this budget. A further matter raised was the ACT prison, particularly transitional accommodation options. In this budget, over $30 million has been provided for prison programs.
The government has responded to community concerns about housing affordability, raised both in the budget consultations and in other forums. In addition to the groundbreaking reforms introduced last year to improve housing affordability, we have introduced other measures in this budget, including increasing the income threshold for the home buyer concession scheme to $120,000 and exempting age pensioners from conveyance duty when they downsize to smaller properties.
The ACT is a caring and committed community, and this was reflected in the submissions to the budget consultation process. Providing integrated services to children, young people and families at risk, greater support for people with disabilities, along with strengthening the community sector and community facilities, were also raised. In this year’s budget, funding has been provided to assist children with developmental delays and to explore options for facilities for people with severe disabilities. A targeted intensive family support service for at-risk Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families is also funded, as is greater assistance for families in west Belconnen.
In response to strong community views, the government is making available many excess school sites for community use. For example, an arts hub is being established at Cook, a health and wellbeing hub at Melrose and a community service hub at Weston. Neighbourhood halls will also be provided at these and six other regional locations. New community centre facilities are being funded at Forde, as well as upgrades to the Belconnen Community Centre.
Eligibility for water concessions has been expanded to include all Centrelink health care card holders, temporary protection visa holders and asylum seekers. To increase the viability and capacity of non-government partner organisations, the government is also providing seed funding to establish a portable long service scheme for the community sector. This recognises that community sector workers should have similar entitlements to other workers. These issues address recommendations made in the budget consultation process.
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