Page 1898 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 May 2010
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The Shaddock review released in December 2009 identified a range of resource allocation issues, particularly around special education. We are pleased to see the government has made a start by allocating $1.6 million over four years, but we would like to know exactly how the government is going to tackle the special education challenges in the short and long term. This is an area that requires significant investment from the government. While we recognise that investment has grown from $44.6 million to $51.4 million since 2004-05, the review shows that much more needs to be done. We are concerned that the funding does not extend to non-government schools given that they were covered by the terms of reference for the review.
The long-awaited review of school-based management in ACT public schools is the second review we have yet to have a government response to. The government’s response to the review, combined with the funding of $600,000 in this budget, must produce the efficiencies to address rising education costs.
While welcoming the establishment of the teacher quality institute overseeing teacher accreditation, registration and certification against nationally recognised standards, we are concerned that the call to support all teachers through more professional learning and relief teaching arrangements has been ignored. Investment in professional development was also a key issue in the Shaddock review.
The Greens welcome the additional funding of $300,000 over four years allocated to ACT primary schools for the swim and survive program. For some time now the ACT Royal Life Saving Society has raised concerns that our students are slipping below the national benchmark on swimming ability and that there is a widening gap between ACT private school and public school students. Ensuring all primary school students have access to swimming and water survival skills is an important item in the ACT Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement and we are very pleased that it has been adopted.
On health, whilst there are a number of good initiatives and the provision for increased services and facilities to key areas of health care, the missed opportunity is the strategic investment in preventive health initiatives. It is better to keep people well and out of hospital rather than be able to treat them when they get there. The real answer, of course, is that we need to be doing both. I hope that we will see more of a commitment to preventive health measures very soon.
The budget allocates $1 million a year for four years in new money to mental health services. Whilst it is, of course, welcome, it is inadequate and fails to recognise that mental illness is the leading cause of death and disability for Australians under the age of 44. We need at least twice that amount to ensure the current and growing mental health needs in the community are being addressed. Governments have not made mental illness the health priority that it should be, despite it affecting the lives of so many people. The ongoing inattention to mental health is something that will be attempted to be rectified through the Greens-ALP parliamentary agreement. I hope that the government will fulfil its obligations.
The ACT government has a commitment to making the ACT carbon neutral and the budget provides $2.6 million over four years to fund the development of policies that
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