Page 1741 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
cycling and walking infrastructure, and of course the renewal of town and group centres and local shopping centres—the Woden town centre upgrades, the Dickson group centre upgrades and local shopping centre upgrades right across the city.
This funding, particularly that associated with transport initiatives and initiatives that improve the health and education of our community, certainly enhances the long-run productive capacity of the economy, in addition to creating jobs during the construction phase.
The budget also includes a number of recurrent measures that build upon the government’s business development strategy to help local businesses grow and to create jobs. Specifically, there are initiatives to support the Canberra brand. There are a series of significant major event funds available for the support of the Cricket World Cup coming to Canberra in 2015, a further extension of our cooperative airline stimulus fund, additional funding to Invest Canberra, the establishment of the Canberra innovation network, a new program to accelerate the development of young entrepreneurs in the city, support for public servants making the transition into the private sector, and support for small business, particularly through the innovation network, to assist business to access new markets.
We will continue to accelerate innovation in the territory and build on the very close relationship that the territory government has with our tertiary education sector and our research institutions, who are already contributing hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity to our economy.
In the long term, our relationship with NICTA and its capacity to focus on supporting innovation in the economy is very important, as is the partnership with the ANU that has led to the regeneration of city west as a world-class, vibrant tertiary education precinct, the development of ANU’s Advanced Instrumentation Technology Centre at Mount Stromlo to deliver a world-class space and spatial precinct, the support for the CSIRO and ANU in developing the formation of the global sciences innovation precinct at Black Mountain, and, of course, the partnership we have with the University of Canberra, both in the soon to be opened sports commons and in the new public hospital.
Through this budget, we are investing in the city and laying the groundwork for our long-term economic future.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Treasurer, what transformative infrastructure projects is the budget investing in?
MR BARR: There is a range of projects, from city to the lake, the convention centre and the capital metro project. The work is underway on the city to the lake project, and there is further funding for the design of the arterial roads—about $7 million has been committed to the next stage of the development of that project. We have, of course, provided funding to progress the detailed business case development for the Australia forum. We are looking also to the future in relation to the Gungahlin to city transit corridor and have provided funding to the Territory and Municipal Services
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video