Page 2444 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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Mr Cornwell: Amend your motion and we will send a copy to Ros Kelly.
MS ELLIS: Thank you very much, Mr Cornwell. There is another aspect of this that I think we ought to pay attention to. If anybody on the other side of the house was remotely interested in this subject they would know it. It is that the Uniting Church and other non-profit organisations throughout this country are participating, whilst being critical of the current position, in a very comprehensive and complementary fashion, with the Federal Government to solve this issue. Really, I think that our attention ought to be turned to that rather than this ridiculous attack on who holds which money where and why, and how much we should spend to alleviate problems in Canberra. The point is that, on behalf of the residents who live in this town who happen to suffer from dementia, it is incumbent upon us to force the Federal Government to look at this matter more seriously. I am not at all ashamed to stand up on behalf of those people and to make that point, no matter who the Federal government is. If these people need that attention brought to this issue I will do it.
Ms Szuty made a point about whether I was sincere. I can assure you, Ms Szuty, that I well and truly am sincere. There is no way that I would ever bring up a motion on a matter of importance to social justice issues affecting the community as much as I think this does without 100 per cent sincerity. I am sorry to say that I take offence at the sorts of words that you used to make that statement.
We all know that the matter contained in this motion is primarily aimed at the need to address very specific issues - the funding formula applicable to these places and the personal care assessment process that is in place at the moment, which is totally inadequate and inappropriate. If we think about the issue we know that it needs to be amended. I do not think that anybody should be at all surprised that I, as chair of the Social Policy Committee, happen to have an interest in the area. Of course I do. The fact that I have received very constructive representations from the people at Mirinjani gives me the opportunity to make further comment on this. Unfortunately, I do not recall at the moment the level of documentation from Mirinjani that I had at the time of our inquiry. That does not change anything much, but I think that it certainly justifies my attempt to bring this need to the attention of this house.
There are, of course, a range of other concerns in the area of aged care, and in fact in the area of a lot of care of disadvantaged people in the community, that we could stand here and talk about for hours on end, and if you ever wish to I am quite happy to do so. The point is that in relation to this particular issue there are things that can be done that have not been done by the Federal Government, and I believe that it is incumbent upon us as representatives of this community to say so. That is exactly and precisely what I intend to do, and will continue to do, until I see this issue corrected.
Despite the sometimes negative and, I must confess, confusing remarks of all of those opposite who spoke on this issue, I am pleased to have sifted through them and to have found that there were words of support for the motion. I suppose I cannot really blame you for taking an opportunity to stand up and carry on a bit about things that are quite incidental to the issue, but I look forward to the motion being supported by the house. I hope that on matters of social import such as this we can continue to have a positive approach in the future.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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