Page 2438 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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As a member of the Social Policy Committee which handed down the report last year, I find it curious to see this motion being used again in this way by the presiding member of that committee. We may well ask, as members of that committee: Why has Ms Ellis not put her efforts into getting the Government to respond to the committee's report? Surely that would be the most positive way to get these issues onto the government agenda.
What has happened to the other recommendations of the Social Policy Committee? Mr Berry has indicated that the Government is still considering them. I agree that 26 recommendations came out of that report, but they are important recommendations. I have received representations over some months from a great many people asking me: When is the ACT Government going to respond to the Social Policy Committee's report on aged accommodation and support services in the ACT?
Other issues that we also saw as matters of priority were the relocation of Jindalee, which Mr Berry announced today has been accredited again, and the construction of a convalescent facility. What has happened to these recommendations? One could quite cynically ask whether the Government has no will to implement any of the other changes but feels that it can quite happily be seen to be pressuring the Federal Government for funds for this particularly urgent area of aged care. I would like to know when we will see the Government's response to all the recommendations of the report. It was a unanimous report of the Social Policy Committee. We raised a great many very important issues and I am sure that we would all like to hear the Government's response.
Madam Speaker, I acknowledge that the committee felt that dementia sufferers and their families and carers needed more support, and that this support should, in the main, come from the Federal Government. That is why we framed the recommendations quoted previously in the way that we did. There were 26 recommendations, as I have said previously, formulated after nearly seven months of investigation. We did not take our task lightly. Our recommendations reflect what we saw as the way forward in providing the necessary policy and infrastructure support for aged accommodation and support services. Why do we now have two recommendations which have come forward as a notice of motion by a member of the Government when the Government has had eight months to formulate a response?
I would have thought that if Ms Ellis was sincere in seeking the expansion of dementia places she would be using her persuasive talents on her ministerial colleagues and not enlisting the help of this Assembly at this time. The Assembly in effect has already given its imprimatur to the recommendations that we have made, and what we would most want to see is a government response to what we have come up with. Perhaps this is an admission that Ms Ellis has been unable to sway her colleagues; either that, or the Government is intending to take its time responding to the rest of the report and sees this as a way of getting two of the recommendations onto the agenda.
Madam Speaker, the efforts outlined in this motion are necessary. The care of dementia sufferers in the ACT is a matter of the utmost urgency. In fact a number of members of this Assembly attended the opening of Eabrai Lodge on Sunday and heard quite explicitly that the centre would be operating at a $150,000 loss for
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