Page 2439 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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every year of its operation. Madam Speaker, I am disappointed at Ms Ellis's efforts and attempts to make political mileage out of what I considered was an apolitical report which in part recognised the urgent need for more dementia places and services.
Mr Connolly: You would never do anything like that.
MS SZUTY: I think that that comment is quite justified. It is a unanimous report of the Social Policy Committee of this Assembly and we are all waiting for a government response to the issues that have been raised.
MR KAINE (11.29): Like Mrs Carnell and Ms Szuty, when I first saw this motion appearing on the notice paper I asked myself the question, "Why is the chairperson of the Social Policy Committee, with an outstanding report on this very matter, putting this matter on the agenda?".
Mr Berry: Did you answer?
MR KAINE: Yes, I did. This is the interesting thing. The answer, when you stop to think a bit, is as plain as the nose on your face, Mr Berry. The answer is that this Government, during its entire time in office since 1989, consistently has resisted doing anything at all for the ageing in this Territory. I imagine that Ms Ellis gets absolutely frustrated. You can imagine the caucus meeting on the fifth floor and Ms Ellis saying, "We need some money for dementia patients and their carers". Ms Follett says, "But we so not have any money; the cupboard is bare". Mr Berry says, "And in any case I need $3m to put a hospice on Acton Peninsula; to heck with the people suffering with dementia". So the debate goes, and Ms Ellis leaves with nothing. So I can understand why it is on here - because of absolute frustration in trying to get this Government to address the question.
I said that it has been going on for four years. In 1989 one of the first things done by this Assembly, and it was done over the objection of the then Follett Government, was to institute an inquiry into the needs of the ageing. The Government resisted it and did not want to do it. It just so happened that even before the Alliance Government was formed there were enough people not in the Labor Government, even then, to overturn the Government and to force them to do this inquiry. That is where it all began. They did not want to do it then; they do not want to do it now. Mr Wood chaired that committee and he came up with an excellent report. There is a complete section in it dealing with dementia. Even then Mr Wood noted a comment by some eminent people in this area that said that there was the potential for an epidemic of dementia. That was in 1989.
We got a new Labor government, for our sins, and Ms Ellis, concerned about this issue, takes on herself, as the committee chair, the responsibility of doing another report. That report was tabled, as has been pointed out, in December 1992, and we cannot even get an answer from the Government on what they intend to do about the matters raised in there, let alone just dementia. It raises a whole range of issues about the ageing, and we cannot even get a response from the Government. So I can understand why Ms Ellis has put this on the notice paper.
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