Page 1058 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 1990
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community organisations and community services which draw upon the aged population - the retired population - and they perform extremely useful and sometimes essential work in the community. It is done by ageing people. The committee report itself has drawn attention to that volunteer community effort by ageing people and I therefore commend the report for that.
The Labor Party's approach to the needs of the ageing has been guided by one very important principle; we believe that as people age they should be given maximum independence for as long as possible. We believe that the community should provide appropriate support services to enable people to live in their own homes for as long as they wish to do so. And, of course, we must also be prepared to provide the kind of institutional care that frail aged people in particular require. We very much welcome the Government's agreement to 55 of the 60 recommendations from the committee and I think it is appropriate that they have agreed to take on the vast majority of those recommendations.
There are, however, a couple of areas where the Government's commitment to the report has given me some concern. I refer, of course, to the Chief Minister's statement, the blueprint for the ageing. First of all, I think the blueprint places an undue emphasis on institutional care. As I have said, I think it is important that governments provide services to enable people to stay independent and in their own homes wherever that is possible. We need to put greater emphasis on ensuring that all government programs and services are sensitive to the requirements of aged people. We cannot lump them all together into a home. Greater sensitivity and awareness stretching from planning decisions through to the siting of bus-stops will contribute to the satisfaction, independence and dignity which aged people experience.
I have had a recent example of this - amongst my own constituents. I have a household of four ageing people, none of whom drives, and it is their wish to continue to catch ACTION buses to their daily activities, of which there are a great number. Now, they are faced with a very steep hike up to the bus-stop and an equally difficult trip back from it to their home. We have been very disappointed and I have been very disappointed on their behalf that Mr Duby has not been able to run the buses past their front door - but never mind. The alternative, of course, is to provide an all-weather footpath for them down to the bus-stop. They currently have to traverse some very rough and steep territory, and a footpath would enable them to get to the bus-stop. I know they have taken that up again with Mr Duby, and I hope that he will be able to see his way clear in the near future to put in that little bit of footpath which would so increase their independence and their ability to get out and about in Canberra.
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