Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3154 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

They are worrying about whether there will be health services, and whether there will be health services they can afford. They are worrying about whether they will be able to afford to stay on in their own homes. They are looking at their rates bills that are coming out now and worrying about how to pay their rates and to pay their heating bills. Heating is an important aspect of life for ACT people. For older people who are home more, the cost of heating bills is an issue that is coming up more and more at this time of the year.

Older people are wondering whether the support services will keep pace with their need. In an election promise in 1995 this Liberal Government said they would adequately resource home-based support services for Canberra's ageing by maintaining HACC funding in real terms. What an easy cop-out - to talk about maintaining HACC funding in real terms. They have no idea how much HACC services are needed. It is impossible to talk about meeting the needs of people requiring assistance at home when there has been no needs assessment undertaken to quantify the outstanding need in our community. There is no point in merely talking about dollars; you must look at what need there is. Talk to any service providing HACC services at the moment and they will tell you they are getting more and more requests for services, but the Government still maintains a dollar basis for looking at that.

Further, in the election promises set out in the Liberal Party's documents in 1995 they stated that they would help the Handyhelp program by restoring indexation to their funding. I would have thought an increase in 1996 of 0.68 per cent was lower than the CPI. This also does not take into account increasing costs across the board or the increasing number of requests. If you talk to the people of Handyhelp they will tell you how busy they have been. It is a wonderful service. A possibly unintended consequence for this organisation and for many other older people in the community was the introduction of tip fees. It put up the cost of this organisation's work and the fees charged by many rubbish removal companies. Costs continue to rise, but there has been no increase in income support and no additional assistance. Services are not being maintained and people are being left in distress, wondering what can happen to them. It is hard to believe that services are being maintained at a needs level when people who received housekeeping services previously have told me that their hours have been cut.

Another thing that is causing great distress in the ACT community at this time is the changes in the Aged Care Act. I remind you of an election promise by those opposite in 1995. They were going to construct two new nursing homes, each of 80-bed capacity, in partnership with the not for profit sector, at Belconnen and Tuggeranong. These facilities were to be funded by the sale of Jindalee Nursing Home at Narrabundah. People are wondering how they can access nursing home services in the ACT. They are wondering whether they can afford them. They are wondering what the impact is going to be if they have to sell their home. They are wondering whether they will be able to afford the additional cost put into place by the Federal Liberals, with no protest from the ACT Liberals. No beds have been provided, as promised. There will be 60 beds opening in Belconnen soon, but I cannot believe that they have been funded by selling off Upper Jindalee. Upper Jindalee was sold at rock-bottom prices. For $250,000, all of those beds were sold. How did you get a new home in Belconnen for $250,000?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .