Page 1861 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014
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Service extended care paramedic program for a further 12 months. The extended care paramedic program is helping us to ensure that our paramedics are delivering a very high quality of service and skill when it comes to them responding to emergency calls.
The government is also planning for the future, with funding for feasibility studies and the assessment of options for expanded facilities for ACT Policing in Gungahlin. The joint emergency service centre in Gungahlin, which includes the adjacent and connected Gungahlin police station, is now nearing capacity. We need to now plan future options to expand the space or relocate the operations of ACT Policing in Gungahlin because of the dramatic increase in the size of that station and its personnel complement. This funding will allow us to look at options as to the best way to address that.
So there are very significant commitments in this budget for emergency services. (Time expired.)
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Gentleman.
MR GENTLEMAN: Minister, can you please expand on the government’s commitment to the new ambulance and fire station at Belconnen?
MR CORBELL: I thank Mr Gentleman for the complementary—supplementary, I should say; it is complementary and supplementary, Madam Speaker. The new station will be built on Bindubi Street in Aranda, with construction expected to start in late 2014 and completion anticipated to be by mid-2016. As I said earlier, it will involve then the relocation of the existing ambulance and fire rescue stations from Lathlain Street in Belconnen to the new facility in Aranda.
I am very pleased to say that development approval for this project has already been achieved. It was approved in March this year following two separate community consultation processes with local residents. The new Aranda station, as I mentioned earlier, is the final project in the first phase of the station upgrade and relocation strategy, which the government has put in place to strengthen and to maintain effective levels of fire and ambulance coverage right across the city.
The site on Bindubi Street has been chosen because of its very close proximity to the arterial road network, which significantly assists our fire and ambulance services to respond promptly and quickly to 000 calls. The construction of the new station at Aranda, of course, follows on from the outstanding facility now in place and operational in west Belconnen—which I know has been very warmly welcomed by the west Belconnen community—and the new south Tuggeranong fire station currently under construction, which I know will equally be well supported and welcomed by residents in south Tuggeranong, particularly in the Lanyon valley.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, can you tell us more about the enhancement to radio and dispatch systems at the Emergency Services Agency?
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