Page 2894 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 1991
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AGED WELFARE
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Humphries proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The Follett Government's continuing attack on the Territory's aged as witnessed by:
(1) the scrapping of the hospice project;
(2) the failure to pursue the relocation of the Jindalee Nursing Home;
(3) the failure to make land available on Lake Ginninderra for the RSL Retirement Village; and
(4) the failure to establish the convalescent facility as a matter of urgency.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.07): Mr Speaker, I take the Assembly back to 25 May 1989, when the Assembly decided to look into the needs of the ageing in the ACT. I think that was one of the first references given by this Assembly to any committee of the Assembly; in fact, it must have been the first reference. In moving the motion, my colleague Mr Kaine said:
If you talk to any group associated in any way with the matters of the ageing, it does not matter whether you talk about whether people want to stay in their own home, about people who need to be put into hostel-type accommodation, about people who need hospital care in geriatric wards, any aspect that you care to mention in connection with the ageing, there is an obvious shortage already of the kind of community facilities that are required.
He went on:
If there is a shortage now and we do nothing about it ... then in five years' time we will have a real problem on our hands.
There are few in this Assembly who would disagree with what Mr Kaine said on that occasion. Indeed, the Assembly took notice to the extent of supporting the motion he moved to establish a reference on that subject to the Standing Committee on Social Policy. The committee duly conducted its inquiry and made its report in October 1989. This report, brought down by the committee chairman, Mr Wood, made a number of key recommendations. It recommended, among other things:
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