Page 1652 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 9 May 2018
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active and significant role for government to make our residents’ lives better. In the upcoming budget the Assembly can expect to see the government investing to meet this population growth with more places at new and expanded schools, and new front-line health services, nurses and doctors. We will be employing more teachers, more nurses, more doctors, more police, more ambulance officers and more firefighters. We will continue to invest in our city’s infrastructure to grow public services for our growing city.
That is exactly why the government invested in light rail in the face of vocal and ongoing opposition from the conservatives opposite. The construction of Canberra’s light rail is a significant transport project—the most significant one this city has ever embarked upon. The government is committed to its delivery. We are also in the planning stages, and will continue to work closely with the commonwealth parliament, to build the second stage of the light rail network through the parliamentary triangle and on to the Woden town centre. This links Canberra’s major employment centres and our city’s significant tourist attractions.
We will continue to work to integrate the bus network with the new light rail, providing more flexible and frequent transport options so that people have the option to leave their car at home. Our city will truly have one network, one public transport fare system, which will make moving around the city as easy as possible.
The government will continue to quickly design and deliver the nurse-led walk-in centres in Gungahlin, Weston Creek and the inner north, building on the excellent services already being provided in Belconnen and Tuggeranong. We know that Canberrans are looking forward to expanded out-of-hours health care and advice in their local area.
We have started the incredibly successful and popular rollout of the municipal green bin service. The initial program in Weston Creek and Kambah has seen nearly 9,500 registrations to the end of March 2018, with around 2,200 tonnes of garden organic green waste collected from April 2017 to February 2018, including those initial Tuggeranong collections. This is already saving Weston Creek and Tuggeranong residents time, effort and money every week. Every suburb in Canberra will have access to register for the service by 2019, making an environmental difference as well as providing a concrete measure to improve cost of living and lifestyle for every home that signs up.
Canberrans can also expect more age-friendly suburb improvements, similar to what has been experienced by residents in Ainslie, Weston, Kaleen and Monash, with Page and Hughes next in line. The age-friendly suburbs program is planned to operate until at least 2021 to improve suburbs, making it easier for older people to be active in the community. Two suburbs per year are selected on the basis of demographics of the suburb, community requests and existing infrastructure.
These projects deliver path network improvements to make it easier, convenient and more accessible for older residents to walk and to use other modes of active public transport travel within their suburb. Works include footpath upgrades, widening and removal of trip hazards, and completing segmented sections of work with additional
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