Page 1079 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 1990
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Australian Council on Health Care Standards. I think that is very important because I would never want anyone who is involved in that facility to be thinking that they are not providing as adequate services and care as they possibly can. They certainly have been doing that, but the facility is very outdated.
Mr Humphries mentioned the two sections of the hospital earlier and how there is a large hill that separates those two facilities. There are also lots of other problems with the area because of a lack of transport facilities and the like. Certainly I am very pleased to see that recommendation taken on board.
The only other point that I want to make is that we should be looking at this as an all-party report, a situation whereby we recognise the contribution that the aged community do make. Often overemphasis is placed on nursing home beds and hostel beds as against the amount of people who are out there in the community providing for their own retired years.
Currently we are looking at only just over 10 per cent of people who ever need to use such facilities, so we have a situation where 90 per cent of the elderly in our community are out there living in their own homes. I think more needs to be done for those people after the contributions that they have made throughout their lives.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (11.53): Mr Speaker, I rise to formally congratulate all those who authored this report and all those who assisted with it. It is a true example of the role of self-government in the ACT and I believe it stands for itself. I know Mr Berry is bored with the topic, I judge that by his interjections, so I wish to respond - - -
Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; there is an imputation there.
MR COLLAERY: I withdraw the imputation that Mr Berry is bored with the topic, Mr Speaker. A number of specific comments were made and I thought that in my introduction I should put some of them down. The Chief Minister made a point in his blueprint for the ageing that adequately summarises the Government's viewpoint on the broad issue. On the finite issues, I would like to run through a few matters. The first was a comment made by Ms Rosemary Follett that the report does not address the needs of people who are non-Australian born, and migrant women in particular. For example, together with Mr Staples, the Federal Minister, I recently approved a grant of $5,000 for the production of multilingual publicity to be used within the context of the HACC scheme that is referred to on page 18 of the report. That is a positive, pragmatic step and I feel that Ms Follett's remarks should not go unresponded to.
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