Page 926 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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The Chief Minister has finally come down with her response to a most comprehensive committee report that dealt with accommodation for the ageing. She brought down a reply only two days ago, although that report goes back for many months. Yet here we are told that we are now going to have a interdepartmental committee to develop a plan to look at appropriate accommodation options. It is simply another ploy on the part of this Government to delay doing anything for this sector of our community.
We are told that the interdepartmental committee will look at accessible and useful information. Two years ago the Chief Minister talked in her then budget speech about having accessible information through our shopfronts. Why has she not done it? I asked her a question about that last year. I said, "Why do you not put into the shopfronts some people who are expert in matters affecting the ageing?". That was an awful surprise to her. She had never thought of that. A year later she has not done it either, but the interdepartmental committee is going to look at accessible and useful information.
Finally - and most importantly, the Chief Minister says - we are going to look at consideration of access and equity issues. Within the last year the Chief Minister has made much of the fact that she has introduced access and equity directions to the entire ACT public service. Is she now saying that that action was not worth the paper it was written on; that it has produced nothing; and that we are now to have an interdepartmental committee to develop a plan that looks at access and equity issues? The answer is yes. That is exactly what she means and, as always, she does not intend to do a darn thing. She has a budget coming up in less than two months now, in which she could have done something for the ageing community - just once - to show that all these good words that she uses in fact have some substance to them and that she really intends to do something. But no. I predict that the budget that is coming up in June will be just as devoid of mention of the ageing as have the last three.
Mr Berry: Put the dollars on it and tell us where the money is coming from.
MR KAINE: You have $1.2 billion to play with, Ex-Minister. Think about it. When you read this statement, it is unbelievable that the Chief Minister could get to her feet and say this. While all this is going on the ACT Housing Trust is exploring options that may help older people who do not qualify for aged persons units. At this stage of self-government the ACT Housing Trust will be exploring options. In other words, "We will look at it; we will talk about it; we will think about it; but we will not do anything".
Madam Speaker, there is no doubt whatsoever that this Government has no commitment to the ageing. They seem to have totally overlooked the fact that you have a voting bloc of 30,000 people out there. This Government does not care. They seem to believe that they are all silvertails or something. The only conclusion that I can draw, Madam Speaker, is that if you are over 55 the Follett Government have written you off, so do not expect anything from the Government. That is the bottom line as far as this "socially just" Government is concerned.
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