Page 1065 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MS MAHER (11.04): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak to the motion again, as I have already spoken once to the report.
Leave granted.
MS MAHER: Mr Speaker, I rise to say that I thoroughly enjoyed being on the committee. As I have spoken before, people can read my response to that in Hansard. I will be mainly speaking to the blueprint which the Chief Minister announced last Thursday. The blueprint incorporates the Alliance Government's response to the Social Policy Committee's inquiry into the needs of the ageing and goes further to spell out a framework for the integrated development of policies and service delivery for the ageing. We are all living longer due to advances in health and technology. The blueprint takes a broad view of drawing together health, housing, education and leisure to promote healthier, more active and more independent older people in the years after retirement.
The blueprint has the full support of the ACT Council on the Ageing - COTA. The chairman of COTA stated that: "The blueprint contains many positive statements of the Government's intentions and recognises the important areas requiring policy initiatives". COTA acknowledges that the Chief Minister, in launching the blueprint, identified the same issues as the Australian Council on the Ageing. These are to be addressed by the Commonwealth. COTA welcomes the positive approach on venues for the university of the third age, the review of concessions, home equity conversion schemes and joint housing ventures, and support for carers. As Ms Follett said, women are high in numbers in that area as they take on the job of caring for people who are frail, aged and disabled.
For the first time in the ACT we have a central focus for planning for the needs of the ageing across government agencies. The Chief Minister announced that a designated liaison position for the ageing in the social policy division of his department would be filled to ensure that there is effective and regular consultation with community organisations and other government agencies delivering services to the ageing.
In the past one of the major difficulties in dealing with policies for the ageing has been the fact that a central coordination point has been missing. This deficiency will now be remedied with the result that communication will be improved and policies and programs will be integrated and cohesive. Over the last couple of months in my position as Executive Deputy I have been going out visiting a lot of the agencies and the community groups. I have been discussing where they are having problems. I am available to them any time that they want to speak to me, so we are communicating with them.
The Alliance Government recognises that discrimination practices based on age are a major impediment to older
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .