Page 3791 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 2011
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ensuring we have better health and education facilities. Every dollar we invest goes into building facilities that feature the latest in design which helps us reduce carbon emissions and meet our targets. Every infrastructure dollar is an investment in the jobs of thousands of Canberrans in the building industry in the ACT.
The latest ACT budget includes a record $2.3 billion in infrastructure works over the next four years. We are committed to making these important investments in community infrastructure and in the jobs of Canberrans. After 12 long years of federal Liberal neglect of the ACT, it is great to be able to work with the federal Labor government to build infrastructure—to fill the “project pipeline”—and to assure the jobs of Canberrans into the future.
Building the education revolution, or BER, is a great example of federal and ACT Labor working together to invest in Canberra schools and Canberra jobs. The BER initiative, itself a program to support jobs around Australia, had a number of components. There was $12.4 billion available to primary schools for the 21st century, or P21 program. These funds were used for building or renewing large scale infrastructure such as libraries, assembly halls, indoor sport facilities and performing arts centres. There was $1.3 billion under the national school pride, or NSP program. This program provided each school up to $200,000 for small scale infrastructure and minor refurbishments such as shade structures and insulation.
Under BER, school communities across the ACT received over $230 million. ACT public schools received over $150 million. Seven building contractors were engaged to manage the delivery of all the projects. These contractors worked extremely well with the Education and Training Directorate, and with individual schools, to deliver value for money and quality facilities. I visited many of these projects at the planning stage, the implementation stage and at the opening and I can attest to the high satisfaction of the school communities. As a result, the ACT recorded the best delivery of BER projects for any jurisdiction. All 84 NSP projects at ACT public schools have been completed. All 68 P21 projects have been completed. The ACT was the first jurisdiction to complete all BER projects. Importantly, for a job supporting stimulus package, all projects were delivered within the very strict time frames set by the federal Labor government.
BER was not just an investment in jobs for today but in workers for tomorrow. This is because every dollar spent on education is not, as Mrs Dunne would say, good money thrown after bad but an investment in giving young Canberrans the skills for tomorrow. But BER has more immediate educational impacts by giving apprentices and Indigenous Canberrans the chance to get at least part of their qualification on a BER project. ACT public school BER projects alone provided 425 apprentices and trainees the chance to get on-the-job training on projects with modern environmental sustainability features.
BER was a resounding success. It was part of an overall package that ensured ACT workers and families were not overwhelmed in the global financial crisis. It has delivered new facilities to every school in the ACT, government and non-government. It has helped train apprentices. It is, along with ACT Labor’s massive record investments in schools, acclaimed by every school community in the ACT.
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