Page 1466 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 26 September 1989
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veterans groups, as the Minister is no doubt aware, are articulate, informed and persuasive proponents of the home and community care program. They include a wide cross-section of the community and involve a very politically aware and consistently helpful element of the population. I think that the Minister would be well advised to include that group in the advisory committee were he to appoint that committee within the next few days.
MR BERRY (Minister for Community Services and Health), in reply (9.23): I think the first issue I should touch on as a result of my response to this matter is the issue of funding. Whilst there is a relationship to the provision of care to members of the community in need, the funding which was available under the CDF is quite different from that which is provided for in other funding because of the Commonwealth's provision of matched funding for the Territory. There is a different way of handling the matter entirely. There should not be confusion about that because the CDF funding is dealt with locally and in the context of our own money supplies, if you like, rather than by way of matched funding.
In relation to the HACC advisory committee, it was originally set up in 1985, according to my advice. Members may be aware that it was announced on 17 July. It will be in place until later on this year, when a new HACC advisory committee will be appointed. There were delays in getting joint ministerial approval for the committee, due to the lengthy negotiations between the ACT and the Commonwealth Department of Community Services, but it is under way at the moment.
In relation to the veterans, a matter raised by my colleague Mr Collaery, I have had the opportunity to meet with veterans groups and to discuss the issue of HACC funding. They are, as he says, an articulate and forceful group in support of the services which they wish to secure for their own constituency. I must say that the reason why I was first asked to talk with them was in the shadow, I suppose, of the New South Wales Liberal Government's decision to cost HACC funding. Many of the services for veterans in New South Wales will now be a cost to them, whereas in the past they were not. That was a matter of concern for veterans and one which I shared. There will be no change to the provision of services in those terms at least for veterans in the Australian Capital Territory.
Perhaps I could just draw your attention to an advertisement on the community care program funding for 1989-90 and mention the headings which describe the funding arrangement. The priority areas under the program include, in order of priority, the setting up of a personal care service; the provision of respite care service for carers of people with disabilities aged 25 to 60; the expansion and upgrading of existing services where necessary to adequately meet clients' needs; the assessment of the accommodation needs and administrative costings of HACC
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