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What we are saying is that we are selling Jindalee as a going concern. Why are we selling it? We are selling it because we believe that the non-government sector and the for-profit sector do a very good job in this area. As Mr Connolly said, fewer and fewer nursing homes in Australia are being run by the State governments. Why is that the case? The reason that is the case is that during the 1980s the Commonwealth dramatically changed the way they funded nursing homes. Before that date there really was an argument to suggest that patients who went to government-owned nursing homes tended to be the ones with higher needs, as Mr Connolly said, who were not accepted by other nursing homes. Unfortunately, Mr Connolly forgot that the Commonwealth, the Federal Labor Government, changed the whole funding principle in the mid-1980s when they changed to funding the direct care needs of patients under the CAM/SAM and OCRE funding arrangements.

What happens now is that the aged care assessment teams, funded by the Commonwealth, assess every person who is looking at going into a nursing home. Their level of care, their nursing hours and other requirements are assessed, and that is directly funded by the Commonwealth. So a patient with higher needs - that is a category 1 patient - will be funded at a higher level than a category 5 patient. This means that the old situation, where higher needs patients did not attract the sort of funding that was required and therefore at times had trouble finding placement, is actually reversed.

Fascinatingly, Mr Connolly, your comment that higher levels of needs patients are at Jindalee could not be further from the truth. The current figures show that 13.9 per cent of people in nursing homes in the ACT are in category 1, which is people in highest need. At Jindalee it is 3.65 per cent. In category 2, the next highest level of need, the Australian average percentage is 42.19. At Jindalee it is 40.29.

Mr Berry: Use ACT averages. Do not mislead the community.

MRS CARNELL: That is the ACT.

Mr Berry: You said “Australian”.

MRS CARNELL: That is the ACT. These are ACT averages, Mr Berry. Predominantly, the patients at Jindalee are in the moderate care range, category 3. Residents there are in category 3 and category 4, not category 1 or category 2.

Mr Connolly: That is Jindalee as a whole.

MRS CARNELL: Those are the people at Upper Jindalee. Those are the people you spoke about. Your comment was that higher levels of needs patients are at Jindalee. It is simply the reverse. Other nursing homes have higher levels of care than Jindalee has. Those are the facts. No matter how you look at it, those are the categories.

Mr Connolly said that we were insistent on selling Upper Jindalee to the for-profit sector. Nothing could be further from the truth. Again, we will get back to the facts. This is what we would like to do. All things being equal, the non-profit sector will have the first guernsey. That is our view. If it can be the non-profit sector, that is who will get it,

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