Page 4445 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 1993
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Finally, I refer to recommendations 21 and 22. Recommendation 21 reads:
Consideration be given to the provision of a crisis care facility for the aged in the northern part of Canberra.
The response is:
The Government notes this recommendation.
That is all. However, it states at paragraph 55:
... suitable sites in inner Canberra are scarce.
What about the Bruce Hostel that you knocked down? I have here an anonymous note which says:
If the ACT Government is not prepared to redevelop redundant schools, why do they want to knock this down?
This was in May 1993. It refers, in fact, to an advertisement to demolish the Bruce Health Services Hostel. The anonymous statement says:
Purpose-built, in good structural condition, 20 years old. Mainly single storey, good quality kitchen and amenities. Manager's 2/3 bed flat. Could be suitable for Aged Persons Hostel with adjoining land for Aged Persons Units.
One wonders, therefore, why the Government states that suitable sites in inner Canberra are scarce. Of course, this response was made after they flattened the Bruce Hostel, so we are left, I suppose, with a fait accompli. Finally, recommendation 22 states:
The Government undertake to construct a convalescent facility in the ACT as a matter of urgency.
The Government, again, has noted this recommendation. I suppose that that is not surprising, given that they are still dithering around with the hospice on the Acton Peninsula. I trust that the Chief Minister will clarify both the provision of a crisis care facility for the aged in the northern part of Canberra and the construction of a convalescent facility, and give us a timeframe for each of these facilities.
Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that completes my remarks on the Government's response. I said that I would support the report. However, I remain unconvinced, at least in the areas I have commented upon, that the Government has either done all it could or moved as fast as it should to act upon the recommendations that were first presented to it in December 1992. That is now 12 months ago, and nine months before this response was received.
MS SZUTY (11.33): I welcome the Government's support of the Social Policy Committee's work and its endorsement of the majority of the committee's recommendations. Many of the comments that I have about the Government's response echo the comments which have been made by Mr Cornwell this morning. I agree with Mr Cornwell that the Social Policy Committee of this Assembly spent some months looking at this inquiry into aged accommodation
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