Page 1085 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 1990
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The Grange was sold or was transferred for a fee of $500,000. It was by direct sale at market value, that market value being determined by the Australian Valuation Office. It was not auctioned, it was a direct sale. The condition of sale was that there were 85 self-care units on that site. My mathematics tells me that for $500,000, that is about $6,000 for each unit. At Ridgecrest, on the other side of town there is a larger number of units. The price per unit for the land component alone was $7,000. I do not know the commercial market at all. I do not know whether that is a fair price for a unit. If I went out into the suburbs somewhere and bought a unit, I do not know what the land component would be. Between $6,000 and $7,000 does not seem an enormous amount to me. I am making no judgment but I ask: is there an element of subsidy for those wealthier aged people. It is something we need to explore.
Let us look at Rocky Knoll. Here we have a whole host of different circumstances and we have to be most careful because I am now moving into the area not of private development but of development by mostly church groups. My understanding is that at Rocky Knoll there was no fee imposed. It was simple for the church group there to build units that are selling for the price indicated. Wealthy people may well be moving into those units. I do not think $137,000 is necessarily only for wealthy people, given today's level of incomes. Is there an element of subsidy for people there? That land was acquired at no cost. The land was long held by the church group. I am not making a criticism in this but I am pointing to a fact and it is one that I believe this Assembly needs to consider. There is the potential for some subsidy in what happens there.
I want to be very careful to point out that the religious groups that move in this area are very often active in their fundraising. There is an Italian community building an aged persons' home and I know the very extensive fundraising activities they have undertaken. They are putting in a substantial contribution. I know the Anglican community at Brindabella Gardens is raising a further half million dollars to add to, I think, the million or more that they have already spent. There is no simple answer to this. They are putting money, I suppose, where their mouth is. So, I do not say that in every circumstance there is necessarily some subsidy because these groups are doing a good job.
Then again, there is a variety of means by which people can enter these places. There is one that I will not mention, that will, I believe, charge a very large sum of money for a wealthy person to take up a room. If a person has no means, they make no charge. I think that is excellent. (Extension of time granted) When I make my remarks, please understand that there is a wide range of avenues into these places. So that means, very quickly, there is going to be no simple answer. I would suggest to the Government that they probably need to set up some working party to look at this matter. It is a complex one. It needs careful and
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