Page 924 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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The final one is:
the principle of rights requires that every member of the community has equal basic rights and the ability to exercise these independent of social and economic circumstances.
That is fine, but what has the Chief Minister done for these 30,000 people in our community over 55? Absolutely nothing. Fine words, but no action. But we are now going to have an interdepartmental committee. We know what interdepartmental committees are for. They are to bury things that are an embarrassment to the Government, and they will stay buried for years. If we look at what the Government has done, not only over the last year but over the last three years, we find that, in concert with the statement about welfare and important groups and all that sort of stuff, the Government has paid a lot of lip-service to youth, to women, even to the environment, to the extent that these three have their own special budgets. But where is the special budget for the 30,000 ageing people? There is none.
The Chief Minister noted that the 1991 census showed an increasingly ageing community, and she talked about that. I suggest that this Government is stuck in a 1991 time warp, because they have done nothing since then. I would like to review their budgets for the last three years. I have the papers in front of me. In the Budget Strategy Statement for July 1991 the Chief Minister said, as she always does, "Social justice will be integral to our approach". Where is the social justice for the 30,000 ageing people? The only thing that she talked about, even in that Budget Strategy Statement, in connection with the ageing was concessions. Of course, they go way beyond ageing people. All kinds of people other than the ageing get concessions.
There was a passing reference to the ageing, although she did not use the word "ageing", in the statement that the Government was looking at concessions. But what happened to them? Nothing happened until two years later in the 1993 budget. And what did she do about concessions for the ageing? She reduced them. She took away some of the concessions that have to do with registration of motor vehicles, concessions for rates and concessions for the diesel fuel that people use to heat their homes. That had a major impact on people, but it was not the impact that the Chief Minister was talking about; it was an adverse impact.
I turn to the 1991 budget speech. Again, there were lots of words about social justice and the like. The Chief Minister listed the organisations that she consulted - the big community consultation scam again - in preparing a budget. The Council on the Ageing was not listed amongst them, and it was obvious that they were not consulted either. I move on to the Budget Strategy Paper for 1992. The Council on the Ageing was not consulted again. Again, she listed the organisations that she consulted in preparing a budget, but there was no mention of the Council on the Ageing. Why? She did not consult with them. The 1992 budget speech really set the tone because it began with the statement:
It is unashamedly a Labor Budget.
It is a Budget which recognises the needs of our community.
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