Page 2435 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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It seemed somewhat unusual to me for Ms Ellis, who is the chair of that committee, to put a motion on the notice paper when her own government had not got its act together enough to respond, over a period now of eight months, to what is a fairly comprehensive report.
Mr Moore: It is a clever way to move her own government along.
MRS CARNELL: Yes. I must say that I find it very unusual to be debating this motion. Dementia care has been an ongoing problem.
Mr Berry: A bit of spend more, tax less. That will help the debate.
MRS CARNELL: It does not cost you too much to respond to committee reports, Mr Berry. In fact it is regularly said that the committee structure of this Assembly is one of the shining lights, that it is the jewel of this Assembly; yet it is not much good if committees bring forward reports that are not responded to by the Government. I think eight months is far too long for a report on which action is desperately needed.
Mr Lamont: It took six months to do the inquiry and you - - -
Ms Ellis: Almost 12 months.
Mr Lamont: It took 12 months to do the inquiry and you expect an answer in 30 seconds. It was an extremely detailed and complicated report, as it should have been.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mrs Carnell has the floor.
MRS CARNELL: It did not even take us eight months to write the thing. How can it possibly take longer to report on it?
Mr Kaine: It is easy if you stick it in the drawer and forget it.
MRS CARNELL: It is just too hard; that is really what we are talking about here. The problem with dementia is a growing one. Ms Ellis and Mr Berry rightly spoke about the dramatic need to improve our services for dementia care. We know that we have in excess of 1,000 patients or people who have been diagnosed as having dementia in the ACT at the moment. We know that if national statistics are right some 60 per cent of those should be in nursing homes and some 13 per cent in hostels, and that 11 per cent are HACC clients. I suggest that in the ACT those figures will not be right. I suggest that substantially more of those people are still at home because of our chronic lack of facilities for dementia care.
Mr Berry: What would you do?
MRS CARNELL: What I would not do, Mr Berry, is this: I would not do what the Federal Government did last night and decrease HACC funding by 2 per cent, which results in quite substantial reductions. I understand that the reductions will be a saving of $7m.
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