Smart State update - 18th April 2005
New Smart State Strategy launched today
Today, at a Community Cabinet meeting at the University of Queensland's Bioscience Precinct, Premier Peter Beattie launched the next stage of the Smart State Strategy - Smart Queensland: Smart State Strategy 2005-2015. (link to SS website strategy doc)
The Queensland Government will commit at least $473 million extra to innovation, research, education, industry and sustainable water use under Smart Queensland, a blueprint for the next era of the Smart State. The new Strategy is about creating Queensland's future. It is about making Queensland skilled, inventive, enterprising, and prosperous.
Key initiatives in the Strategy include:
- Three new innovation funds, totalling $200 million, and an extra $20 million for the Smart State Research Facilities Fund.
- An education package backed by $127 million, including $56 million to convert all 1300 state schools into Smart Classrooms and $46 million for two new high school academies of excellence.
- The Golden Casket Medical Research Foundation, based on interest earned on more than $23 million in unclaimed first division lotto prize money.
- An extra $51.5 million in new funding for water initiatives.
- $1 million for biotechnology research to control cane toads.
- $2.4 million for the Queensland-based International Water Centre.
- $20 million to boost mining exploration (with potential returns of $3 billion for the mining industry).
- $7.3 million for an ethanol plan that includes helping service stations make E10 available.
- $4 million for the aquaculture industry.
- $7 million towards a facility that will enable biotechs to do more development of potentially life-saving drugs in Queensland.
- $1.4 million for Australia’s first biotech “pipeline”.
- $1.5 million for the horticulture industry to target new Asian export markets.