Page 462 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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like all of my colleagues, am determined that the Canberra of tomorrow will be even stronger than the Canberra of today.
Our community is growing, and we are becoming a truly internationally engaged city. The opportunities that this engagement will provide over coming generations are limitless. But while we stretch to take our place in the world, the government is also working hard to strengthen those essential characteristics that make Canberra such a unique place to live: our world-class education and health systems; our strong transport network; our skills-based economy; but most importantly, Madam Speaker, our welcoming, supportive and inclusive community.
Canberrans have told me that these are their priorities, and every member of my government works every day to deliver on them. We are delivering the health, education and transport infrastructure necessary to avoid service gaps and congestion that are experienced all too often in other jurisdictions.
At the Canberra Hospital we have opened the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children and expanded the emergency department, and we will soon open a 25-bed secure mental health unit. We have invested in Calvary hospital, with a new medical assessment and planning unit, a hospital in the home program and a new birth centre.
Of course, earlier this month construction commenced on the new teaching hospital at the University of Canberra to open in 2018 to provide the people of Belconnen and north Canberra—and indeed the rest of the city—with a state-of-the-art, modern subacute hospital. We are blitzing elective surgery wait lists. We are establishing walk-in centres so that Canberrans receive the right medical care where and when they need it. We are investing in the city’s future by ensuring that the city’s children receive a world-class education.
We have opened new schools in growing regions, like the Coombs school in the Molonglo Valley and the school at Taylor in north Gungahlin. We have upgraded existing facilities, such as the Canberra College Woden campus and Belconnen High School. We have rolled out an upgraded wi-fi network in all of our public schools so that kids in Canberra’s public schools are the best connected in the country.
We saw the opportunity and we have worked hard to get international flights to Canberra. We have delivered on that objective. Canberra will soon be at the centre of a capital express service that connects us to Singapore and to Wellington. This is something that even those opposite seem incapable of finding fault with, even if they cannot quite yet bring themselves to acknowledge what a fundamental game changer it is for our city. The export, tourism and transport opportunities from this breakthrough are simply massive.
Madam Speaker, my government is delivering a transport network that will give our city a massive competitive and productivity advantage in the 21st century. The Canberra light rail network will see our citizens bypassing the sort of horrific traffic jams that are faced every day in cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. We said we would build a legal, convenient and safe ride-sharing system for our city, and we delivered on that. We were the first in Australia to provide our residents with the
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