Page 3580 - Week 09 - Thursday, 23 August 2018
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The budget includes $2 million in funding to upgrade the Tuggeranong police station and recently upgraded SES facilities at Calwell. Five new ambulances will continue to provide the highest quality of emergency services to the ACT and ensure that the Tuggeranong community is a safe community. Our emergency services personnel and volunteers do an excellent job in protecting Tuggeranong and the wider Canberra community. I am proud to be part of a government committed to supporting them.
Upgrades for the Tuggeranong town centre are in the budget, with $4 million allocated to: improving cycling and pedestrian connections from Anketell Street to Lake Tuggeranong via the town square; converting the paved area from Tuggeranong Arts Centre into grass, with the aim of continuing to grow this important community facility; and providing new path connections to link the Lakeside Leisure Centre with the Lake Tuggeranong shared path.
There are also upgrades to key roads, including a completed upgrade to Ashley Drive, which over 20,000 cars use every day. This $24 million upgrade will be further supported by a commitment in this budget to match up to $100 million in the federal government funding for upgrades to the Monaro Highway.
Through a joint program with the federal government, we are investing over $80Â million in the healthy waterways project. This project will help ensure the health of Lake Tuggeranong. The development of the upper Stranger Pond rain garden is another component of the healthy waterways project that will provide benefits to the Tuggeranong community. Once completed, this project will be the biggest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
The budget delivered by the ACT government provides excellent support for a growing community in the ACT. These benefits will have a direct positive influence on the lives of people in Tuggeranong. Improved access to services such as local libraries, upgrades to the Tuggeranong town centre, stamp duty concessions for first homebuyers, improved emergency services and upgrades to key roads will all contribute to growing the community of Tuggeranong and the city.
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate you on the work that you have done in supporting Tuggeranong. It is in stark contrast to Ms Lawder, who this morning voted against all of this expenditure for Tuggeranong: for health and hospitals, for schools, for expenditure in police, for expenditure in ambulance paramedics and all of those measures that I have talked about. Just now she opposed $10 million in funding for tidier suburbs for Tuggeranong. She was opposed to $2 million in funding for the upgrade to the Tuggeranong police station. She was opposed to improving the cycling and pedestrian connection from Anketell Street to Lake Tuggeranong. And she was opposed to the government’s commitment to upgrading the Monaro Highway. She voted against it, Madam Speaker.
My message to the people of Tuggeranong is that the Canberra Liberals do not support investment in Tuggeranong. It is now on the record.
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