Page 1857 - Week 09 - Thursday, 19 October 1989
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really an extraordinary matter in our society and it is well described in the report, which deals with it in some detail.
I would want to note here the very great benefit the committee found in consulting with authorities, not only in the ACT, and especially at the ANU and at the Woden Valley Hospital where Professor Sinnett again was present, but also in nearby New South Wales. This is a new lesson for us in our new Assembly. We have much to learn from experiences across the border.
One of the most rewarding and revealing of all our field trips was that at Peppertree Lodge in Queanbeyan. It is as though Robyn Nolan and I had been reading each other's speeches! The Assembly is already learning how close our relationships are with our sister city, and I am so pleased to see that we now take the Queanbeyan Age in the reading room upstairs. The visit to Peppertree Lodge is another example of what may be learned from close cooperation and consultation.
I could go on at length about the other people to whom we should express thanks - there are so many of them - for example, the devotion of people in the caring agencies, including the Council on the Ageing, as Bill Wood has already mentioned. One witness so impressed us with her truly loving and selfless service - which was obviously keeping her young and vibrant - that I passed a note to Bill to suggest that we nominate her for the Order of Australia. But we could have had the same reaction to dozens of the people we met.
However, I want to pay very special tribute to hard-working and caring general practitioners, two of whom appeared before us to give evidence. Their advice to us is reflected in the report in several places. We honour them for their front-line work. I am thinking in particular of a caring clinic of six GPs, all women, in Ainslie, the suburb with the highest number of aged people in Canberra.
I would now like to stress what the members of the committee learned from the experience - from field trips, formal hearings, informal briefings, extensive committee meetings and many talks in the corridors and offices of this building. We learned that our mounting and increasingly urgent concern about the needs of the ageing - for example, dementia - came about in a context which was essentially collegial, not related to parties or narrowly conceived politics, and I honour all my colleagues there.
Again I came to realise, as in an earlier committee assignment, that our work for the people of Canberra, and by extension therefore the people of Australia, is often at its best in our committee work. I have no doubt about that whatsoever. At times I am critical of what goes on in this chamber. Perhaps I need to learn to have more patience and understanding for modes of behaviour and conduct which
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