Page 2925 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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The government is also making investments in a range of important pieces of infrastructure. For example, the ACT legislation register is a critical system to the operations of the government as a whole. The register is where acts of the Assembly legally take effect, and it is also the verified formal record of acts adopted by this place. The 2013-14 budget, therefore, will provide just over half a million dollars to commence the planning work needed for the redevelopment of the register, which is now 12 years old.
The government continues to provide funding and increases for the pay of important statutory office holders. Totalling just over three-quarters of a million dollars, increases in remuneration have been made available to the human rights commissioner, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Solicitor-General of the ACT as a result of Remuneration Tribunal decisions.
As my colleague Ms Berry has just indicated, the government is making a major investment in improving workplace safety. The budget is providing just under $6 million over four years for 12 additional staff and five additional vehicles for WorkSafe ACT to increase its capacity to regulate the construction industry in particular and, more broadly, all workplaces and ensure that WorkSafe has better expertise in the investigation of complex breaches of legislation.
This initiative delivers on our budget commitment to implement the inquiries of the Getting home safely report and to ensure there is a stronger and more proactive capability within WorkSafe ACT to deal with bad work practice; work practice that all too often tragically leads to serious injury or death on ACT construction sites.
The government continues to provide funding for some important capabilities in emergency services—in particular, just over $4 million over four years to provide additional funding to support the ACT Fire and Rescue platform-on-demand capability. This capability is designed to transport and deploy specialised equipment, such as urban search and rescue and hazmat equipment, to the scenes of critical emergency events. The PODs, or platform on demand, capability is an efficient approach to managing and resourcing major incidents, and this initiative will allow this capability to be deployed on a 24/7 basis.
There is also $10 million over two years to enable the ESA to continue to meet increases in its employee, workers compensation, supplies and services costs whilst maintaining emergency response capability. I am very proud that there is just under $18 million over four years for a new fire station in south Tuggeranong in the Calwell-Conder area as the next step of the government’s emergency services upgrade and relocation strategy. I am sure all members, particularly those who represent Brindabella, will welcome this commitment, as it builds on the relocation strategy being implemented now at Charnwood and will see better fire coverage for residents of the Lanyon valley.
The government will also continue to invest in broader aspects of community safety as a result of this budget. I acknowledge the support expressed by Mr Hanson for the funding of just over $5 million to expand ACT Policing’s road safety operations team.
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