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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 663 ..

Various assertions have been made both in the chamber today and through the media about the state of play in relation to planning and development applications for aged care accommodation. I think the motion that Mrs Dunne has put forward is quite sensible as it will allow us to get the information we need to have an informed debate. I am pretty sure that this debate will not go away any time soon as we do have a lot to do in relation to aged care.

I would like to take the opportunity to use this debate almost as a matter of public importance to raise some concerns in relation to aged care services. We know about the growing need and the long waiting lists for people wishing to access aged care services, but an issue that I do not think has been looked at in terms of the aged care debate is that some aged care units, accommodation set aside in nursing homes, are actually being taken up by young people who have intensive care needs as a result of serious brain trauma or other serious injuries.

Quite often, these young people are ending up in nursing homes because there are no other appropriate caring facilities for them. That is unacceptable and an unfortunate hindrance to their rehabilitation and it takes up beds that aged people are trying to access. My Democrats colleague in the Senate, Brian Greig, has proposed that revenue from speed cameras go towards providing adequate facilities to young people who are injured as a result of car accidents so that they no longer just get shunted out of sight and take up places in nursing homes.

I add that to the debate. We are trying to find adequate aged care accommodation places to service the need of Canberrans. One way to do that is to look at who is currently taking up beds and whether they can be better serviced in other appropriate facilities.

I thank Mrs Dunne for putting this motion on the table, I thank the minister for saying that he will be able to comply with the will of the Assembly and I look forward to the progressing of the debate and getting more aged care units out there in the community to support the demand and need.

MS TUCKER (3.41): The Greens will be supporting this motion as well. Important information is being called for and I think that its provision would bring some clarity to the whole discussion. I do want to broaden the debate a little on aged care. One of the features of the Canberra spatial plan and the economic white paper is that they presume that Canberra will have an ageing population and that is seen to have an economic cost. Recent modelling of ageing in Australia suggests, however, that older Canberrans will not be such a drain on our resources.

In a paper presented to a forum held by the New South Wales Department of Ageing, Disability, Home Care and Housing in February 2002, entitled “The income and wealth of older Australians—trends and projections”, the authors found that the average wealth of older Australians almost doubled—from $106,000 to $204,000—between 1985-86 and 1996-97 and that, while the after-inflation incomes of the bottom 25 per cent of older Australians remained stable over the 11 years, the incomes of the top 25 per cent rose.

They argued that, while many older Australians will have insufficient resources to fund a comfortable retirement, others will have substantial assets to fall back on. I am talking

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