Page 923 - Week 03 - Thursday, 28 February 2013
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the ACT due to their council boundaries either adjoining or being very close to ours. It is a unique relationship, a cross-jurisdictional relationship, but a relationship where generally people do not consciously recognise the jurisdictional boundary.
The meetings with SEROC and the individual mayors provide an important insight to the issues councils within the region are facing. For the ACT, these meetings also provide an opportunity to examine how we can work more effectively together. I anticipate SEROC and individual councils will contribute to the committee’s deliberations, but it will also be important to hear from the broader community of the greater capital region. The region has a population of over 600,000 people and it is a population that continues to grow.
The pressure we are currently experiencing in transport, road networks, service delivery in education and health will continue to emerge. I have previously outlined the concrete examples of cross-border collaboration in the area of health where we are delivering real benefits for patients, including an agreement with Southern New South Wales Local Health District and the ACT that gives New South Wales residents access to specialist renal services as well as dialysis and post-transplant care. New South Wales paramedics transmit electrocardiograms to the Canberra Hospital emergency department ahead of arrival, enabling urgent decisions to be made regarding appropriate treatment for patients with heart attacks while on the way to hospital. The delivery of some elective surgery at Queanbeyan Hospital ensures efficient use of our region’s health facilities and gives patients their operations sooner. A new tele-health project links regional emergency departments to the Canberra Hospital emergency department, enabling ACT clinicians to make life-saving decisions more quickly by remotely accessing critically ill patients and also providing clinical support and backup to those health professionals working in those smaller regional hospitals. Collectively discussing how we can work together more effectively and coordinate our efforts across a wide range of activities will be critical over the coming years.
Another area of interest is examining economic development opportunities across the region. One of the ACT’s strengths, of course, is our knowledge sector. The broader region has diverse rural and agricultural sectors, along with an emerging renewable energy sector. How can we effectively work together to further enhance the economic and employment opportunities these sectors provide? What opportunities will the rollout of the national broadband network provide across the region?
One industry sector that has the greatest potential across the region is tourism. The tourist experience of the greater capital region includes the nation’s capital, the wineries, coastal towns and the Snowy Mountains, just to name a few. I am sure we can coordinate ourselves more effectively across the region to become a recognised tourist destination, even more than we are already.
I did write to members, I think, in the last 10 days or so around the terms of reference, seeking input into them. I had some correspondence back from Mr Rattenbury, who provided some input into the terms of reference. I did write to Mr Hanson. Hopefully this is a committee that we can establish with tripartisan support in this place. The desire for me is to have the Assembly work alongside the government in looking at
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