Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to share with the House what the economic stimulus package has meant to the Shortland electorate. The stimulus program has developed real nation building in the electorate of Shortland. When people think of the stimulus package, they think of the payouts that were paid to people. Yes, 55,000 people in the Shortland electorate did receive stimulus payments. But, in addition to that, $60,344,400 has actually gone into the building of much-needed infrastructure in the Shortland electorate. This is a very big change from what happened under the Howard government. The Howard government constantly ignored the Shortland electorate. They would not even reopen the Belmont Medicare office. But, of course, this government did; it allocated funds for it in the last budget.

Of the $60 million plus that has been allocated to the Shortland electorate, $48,350,000 has gone to the education revolution. There is $7,150,000 for the National School Pride Program, and $41,200,000 for the Primary Schools for the 21st Century—and this is just the beginning.

In relation to social housing in the Shortland electorate, 17 social housing units, to the value of $4.3 million, have been approved. The construction of these dwellings will start in 2009 and will be completed by 2010. Also, 631 social housing units will be upgraded and repaired. The cost of this maintenance will be $3.6 million. This work is vital because there is a lot of public housing in the Shortland electorate and for a very long period of time the previous federal government had been withdrawing funding that it had given to the states for social housing. So this is a real opportunity to upgrade these houses.

There is funding of $1,550,000 for eight black spot projects. There is also $1,676,000 for community infrastructure projects. There have been 89 applications for the home insulation program and 460 applications for the solar rebate program. These projects have been really welcomed in Shortland. On another occasion I will go into detail of all the schools that have benefited from the package. I would like to place on record my total support for the stimulus package and what it has delivered to the people of Shortland. (Time expired)