Page 1913 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 May 2009
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As part of the 2008 election campaign ACT Labor committed $12 million over four years to support and grow the GP workforce. This Budget honours those commitments. We will establish an “in hours” aged care GP locum service, fund scholarships for medical students, reimburse GPs for the costs of taking on medical students and kick off our GP infrastructure fund.
More than $4.2 million over four years has been provided to meet the growth in demand for health services by older Canberrans, the first stage of our election commitment.
We have kept our $150 million capital commitment to continue to fund our health system rebuild in time for the rise in demand for health services which will peak between 2016-2018.
This Budget provides an unprecedented level of investment in technology—an e-health package of $90 million for a suite of initiatives that will put us at the forefront of e-health technology in Australia. Giving all Canberrans an opportunity for an electronic health record, improving technology in our hospitals to ensure safety and quality of care and linking up the health system with cutting edge technology with a focus on improving efficiency across the board.
$51.3 million is allocated for the forward design and construction of an Enhanced Community Health Centre at Belconnen which will allow us to transfer appropriate services out of the hospitals and support the expansion of community based health services.
Education
Mr Speaker, the ACT Labor government is committed to ensuring Canberra students have the best start in life, with access to an engaging and high quality education. Investing in educational programs for students, teacher development and literacy and numeracy outcomes are priorities for the government.
In recognition of our key election commitment to lowering class sizes, this Budget invests $22.7 million over four years to employ 70 additional staff members in ACT schools, to reduce class sizes and improve educational outcomes. Capital funding of $6 million has also been provided to accommodate the additional class rooms.
Literacy and numeracy skills are a vital element of a student’s education and development. This Budget provides $6.4 million over four years for specialist literacy and numeracy teachers to assist students at risk of not achieving national benchmarks. This is in addition to the $1.9 million over four years flowing into the ACT from the Commonwealth for further literacy and numeracy programs.
The ACT is also receiving $1.7 million in funding from the Commonwealth to improve teacher quality through initiatives that target attracting, training, developing and retaining teaching staff, the development of a new classroom teacher salary structure and, in the longer term, an ACT Teacher Quality Institute.
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