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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 3228 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

quite pertinent and hopefully will provide us with the information we need for better future planning.

MRS DUNNE (10.47): Mr Speaker, this is indeed a very important issue. Only yesterday the lovely mauve government publication Towards the Canberra spatial plan was released. We seem to moving inexorably but very slowly towards a spatial plan.

There is a very revealing graph on page 19 of the publication which shows the change in the ACT population between 2000 and 2003. Just as an example, in 2000 the number of people aged 75 to 79 is about 5,500 but by 2032 that will increase to nearly 17,000. That is just one example of the shift in the demographic profile towards older age. The really revealing figures in this table show that this year the population in the ACT aged 85 and over is about 2,500 but by 2032 it will be 15,000.

I support Mr Cornwell's motion and oppose Mr Corbell's amendment, which goes against the spirit of the motion. It does everything to anodise the motion and becomes a self-congratulatory backslapping exercise. But I support finding a place in the motion for Ms Tucker's sensible amendment about process, requiring that the Assembly be reported to regularly on progress.

The issue of aged care is a very daunting one. I disagree with Ms Dundas that Mr Cornwell's original motion is unnecessarily prescriptive. The motion asks that priority be given to aged-care facility applications through the planning process. The Minister for Planning said he was not going to upset the planning process just for some old people and how dare we propose that these things be expedited. If it were in the interest of the government, it could be expedited through the planning process.

I propose to give some examples of where the planning process has bogged down and where we have not addressed the needs of aged people currently in the system and people aspiring to live in suitable aged-care accommodation. Ms Dundas is right, Mr Speaker: when we talk about aged-care accommodation, we are not talking just about nursing homes. Current research indicates that 7 per cent of the aged population will at some stage have recourse to a nursing home. But that means that there is another 93 per cent of the population who at some stage in their life will want more supported housing than the sort they currently have-housing which is more suited to their needs and not a rambling empty nest with an accumulation of memories and dust. They do not want a house and a garden that they cannot manage.

People need and want the flexibility to make choices. If they want to stay in their family home of 50 years, that is fine. But they need to have the opportunity at a time of their own choosing and not because of extreme circumstances to find something which is more suitable.

I would like to draw on a personal example. My parents have been married for 56 years and up until last year they had lived in the one house. I might say that this was not in the ACT. For some time my family had been saying that perhaps they should look for something else because their house was on a very steep block on a very steep hill and had become increasingly difficult to manage. Over the years they had adjusted their lifestyle and managed that block.

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