Page 1002 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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I trust that Mr Collaery will also be able to advise us what is to happen to the special care transport service, the community work program, the aged care program and the senior citizens drop-in centre, the youth program and the youth drop-in centre. All of these are within your portfolio, Mr Collaery. I would like to ask how these services will be provided when there are not adequate kitchen facilities, when access is difficult for many people, when the toilets can only be reached by climbing two flights of stairs.
Mr Collaery: Have you been there?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Collaery asks have I been there. I think a better question is: Has he been there? The people of Weston Creek have also been disadvantaged by the loss of their Weston Creek baby health centre. The Government's preparedness on that issue to attack people who are least able to help themselves just demonstrates their total lack of care for the community. We have the farcical situation where, depending on which side of Hindmarsh Drive you live, you have to use either the baby health centre in Woden or the one in Tuggeranong for immunisation services and for baby health services.
As I said before, the Government is pretending that Weston Creek does not exist, that the people in Weston Creek are not as entitled as other communities in the ACT to have those services delivered to them locally. One issue that I would like to raise, finally, is this: There is a large elderly population in Weston Creek, and that includes, of course, the Mirinjani Retirement Village. It is those people who perhaps have the greatest difficulty in coming to terms with this Government's denial of the essential services which they require. Those people are the least able to use Mr Humphries' so-called relocated services, and they do require those services to be delivered in their own neighbourhood.
It is a fact that many of the people in Weston Creek went there specifically for the services that were available. Now they are facing a situation where those services have been wiped out by the Government opposite. We have had no word of comment from government members on this issue, despite the large amount of press comment.
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Ms Follett; your time has expired.
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