Mr McADAM - 2005-05-03
Can you inform the House of 2005-06 budget initiatives which will have the most impact on the Centre and the Barkly?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Barkly for his question. It is very important to know that the budget impacts right throughout the Territory. I am very pleased to talk about its positive impacts on Central Australia.
Businesses in the Centre will be equally pleased with the tax breaks, on the payroll tax particularly, which will affect them positively, as it will in the Top End. That is a great testament to the confidence we feel in the business community to make the most of the opportunities we are giving them through these breaks that we are putting in our budgets.
In terms of the construction industry, we want our constructors to be flat out, pedal to the metal, on building stuff for us down there in the next budget period.
Health: there is $2m to go into renal and acute services in Alice Springs, including $1m into Flynn Drive for renal facilities; a $650 000 upgrade to staff accommodation in Alice Springs Hospital; $1.8m to a new health centre at Yuendumu, and I had the pleasure of seeing the cement slab being laid last time I was there; the drags – Al Stainer will be rapt. It is in writing now, Al, with $800 000 to get the drag strip in next to the Finke start-finish line; two gensets for the Tennant Creek Power Station so the member for Barkly has one there; and the Stuart Lodge renovations have $1.7m and will be starting as soon as we can get the contract in place.
Roads throughout Central Australia will get a boost: the Maryvale beef road $800 000; $500 000 for the Sandover Highway; $10m for the Borroloola access project, which will continue on from the work in the last budget, with $4.8m going out this financial year, followed by design work on the McArthur River Bridge; Alpurrurulam has needed an airstrip for years, and to get an all-weather airstrip in there is going to be fantastic for the community, and there is $1.25m for that.
Tourism: we are not only going to continue full blast on the Mereenie Loop, we are also putting $1m into the Western MacDonnells to improve visitor facilities; for Desert Knowledge, we will be building a lot at the precinct. Millions of dollars worth of work is going out in this financial year, and they will be flat out building this for us. I wish the construction industry well in getting the skilled labour and the additional people and equipment they are going to need to bring into Central Australia for the coming 12 months because we want them there and we want this work done.
In terms of safer communities, we will continue to build, as the police minister said, the number of police on the streets. We will be outposting them through the mobile police station. Some $350 000 will go into community safety plans, which have been brought together by the regional crime prevention councils we have now set up throughout the Territory, including Alice Springs and places like the Relekha Committee at Hermannsburg and the Kurduju Committee in Warlpiri lands. All of those organisations now have the money to apply the crime prevention ideas they are coming up with in these community safety plans.
For volatile substance abuse, $0.5m is going into Central Australia to support the rehabilitation centres, both out bush and in town, to handle the petrol sniffers who will be referred to them under our new legislation.
For hospitals, there is $81.2m in our total spend on the Alice Springs Hospital with the announced level of expenditure in this budget. That is a huge increase, some 33% since we came to office. For Tennant Creek Hospital, there is $8.1m. There will be significant increases in the staffing of Alice Springs Hospital with $1.94m for staffing levels in the ICU and the HDU. An additional surgeon is going to have a big impact on elective surgery and other surgical work in the hospital.
In secondary education, all our town secondary schools will have a student counsellor full-time, and the secondary programs out bush will finally get the systematic support from government that they have needed for years, as you would know, Madam Speaker. The trainees and apprentices are going to impact fantastically on the Centre, as it will elsewhere.
The Alice Springs Festival will receive $130 000, and the Barkly Festival, $30 000. We will have BassintheDust again, to which we are all looking forward.
Central Australians are starting to see how good life can be under a Labor government. It is going to be a very interesting election when it finally arrives.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Written Question Paper.
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Madam Speaker! We actually did not start until a couple of minutes past the hour of 2.30 pm. It is a very important question that the Leader of the Opposition wants to ask. Their budget papers do not add up, Madam Speaker. They have the figures wrong!
Madam SPEAKER: You know the rules. Good try. Question Time is over.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Barkly for his question. It is very important to know that the budget impacts right throughout the Territory. I am very pleased to talk about its positive impacts on Central Australia.
Businesses in the Centre will be equally pleased with the tax breaks, on the payroll tax particularly, which will affect them positively, as it will in the Top End. That is a great testament to the confidence we feel in the business community to make the most of the opportunities we are giving them through these breaks that we are putting in our budgets.
In terms of the construction industry, we want our constructors to be flat out, pedal to the metal, on building stuff for us down there in the next budget period.
Health: there is $2m to go into renal and acute services in Alice Springs, including $1m into Flynn Drive for renal facilities; a $650 000 upgrade to staff accommodation in Alice Springs Hospital; $1.8m to a new health centre at Yuendumu, and I had the pleasure of seeing the cement slab being laid last time I was there; the drags – Al Stainer will be rapt. It is in writing now, Al, with $800 000 to get the drag strip in next to the Finke start-finish line; two gensets for the Tennant Creek Power Station so the member for Barkly has one there; and the Stuart Lodge renovations have $1.7m and will be starting as soon as we can get the contract in place.
Roads throughout Central Australia will get a boost: the Maryvale beef road $800 000; $500 000 for the Sandover Highway; $10m for the Borroloola access project, which will continue on from the work in the last budget, with $4.8m going out this financial year, followed by design work on the McArthur River Bridge; Alpurrurulam has needed an airstrip for years, and to get an all-weather airstrip in there is going to be fantastic for the community, and there is $1.25m for that.
Tourism: we are not only going to continue full blast on the Mereenie Loop, we are also putting $1m into the Western MacDonnells to improve visitor facilities; for Desert Knowledge, we will be building a lot at the precinct. Millions of dollars worth of work is going out in this financial year, and they will be flat out building this for us. I wish the construction industry well in getting the skilled labour and the additional people and equipment they are going to need to bring into Central Australia for the coming 12 months because we want them there and we want this work done.
In terms of safer communities, we will continue to build, as the police minister said, the number of police on the streets. We will be outposting them through the mobile police station. Some $350 000 will go into community safety plans, which have been brought together by the regional crime prevention councils we have now set up throughout the Territory, including Alice Springs and places like the Relekha Committee at Hermannsburg and the Kurduju Committee in Warlpiri lands. All of those organisations now have the money to apply the crime prevention ideas they are coming up with in these community safety plans.
For volatile substance abuse, $0.5m is going into Central Australia to support the rehabilitation centres, both out bush and in town, to handle the petrol sniffers who will be referred to them under our new legislation.
For hospitals, there is $81.2m in our total spend on the Alice Springs Hospital with the announced level of expenditure in this budget. That is a huge increase, some 33% since we came to office. For Tennant Creek Hospital, there is $8.1m. There will be significant increases in the staffing of Alice Springs Hospital with $1.94m for staffing levels in the ICU and the HDU. An additional surgeon is going to have a big impact on elective surgery and other surgical work in the hospital.
In secondary education, all our town secondary schools will have a student counsellor full-time, and the secondary programs out bush will finally get the systematic support from government that they have needed for years, as you would know, Madam Speaker. The trainees and apprentices are going to impact fantastically on the Centre, as it will elsewhere.
The Alice Springs Festival will receive $130 000, and the Barkly Festival, $30 000. We will have BassintheDust again, to which we are all looking forward.
Central Australians are starting to see how good life can be under a Labor government. It is going to be a very interesting election when it finally arrives.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Written Question Paper.
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Madam Speaker! We actually did not start until a couple of minutes past the hour of 2.30 pm. It is a very important question that the Leader of the Opposition wants to ask. Their budget papers do not add up, Madam Speaker. They have the figures wrong!
Madam SPEAKER: You know the rules. Good try. Question Time is over.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016