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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Tuesday, 9 March 2004) . . Page.. 906 ..

last week the government has listed it as still “in pre-application stage”—whatever that means. We may never see this facility built because the Commonwealth has given the Little Company of Mary an extension until June this year only—a six month extension until June this year only—before these beds are taken back. I hope that will not happen.

What about the Croatian village proposal to build 15 aged care units at Stirling? Again, it has been besieged by planning delays and hurdles, and possibly financially unviable due to the change of use charges estimated to be around $20,000 to $30,000 per unit to build.

Again this was written up in The Canberra Times yesterday, 8 March. The critic was a Mr Peter Conway, a consultant. Mr Conway, to the best of my knowledge, was a Labor candidate—I think he was the number two in the senate; he has certainly been involved in Labor circles for many years. Things get to a pretty pass when your own mates start to criticise you for failure to act.

What is the government doing to address these problems for aged care developers? The answer is nothing. Yet it is going to great lengths to assist developers wishing to develop properties in Civic West. But it does not seem to be prepared to make any concessions or attempt legislatively to amend the planning rules for these much needed aged care facilities. We do not want the government to break the law or to cut corners; we simply want it to speed up the planning facilities.

It appears that even the Commonwealth has run out of patience. Today The Canberra Times states that only yesterday two new facilities for dementia sufferers and their carers were opened, one at the upper Jindalee Nursing Home and another at Gloria McKerrow House in Deakin.

It appears to me that the Commonwealth has decided to leap frog this ACT government and go direct to people holding these facilities. Perhaps it has lost as much faith in this Stanhope government as have most aged people and their carers here in Canberra.

The ACT government cannot use the Commonwealth government as an excuse for its lack of action, much as it would like to, simply because it is sitting on 255 beds that have been funded by the Commonwealth and which have not been taken up. Why should the Commonwealth be keen to increase funding to the ACT for future beds if the government has not used those that it has already been given? That is for you people to answer, not me.

I move away from planning and look into the neglect of the aged. Let us look at elder abuse. Despite glossy pamphlets, brochures and media releases, nothing has eventuated to address the problem of elder abuse. We all know that report No. 11 of the committee on health and community care, which was delivered towards the end of 2001 during the time of the previous government, was not picked up by the Stanhope government and acted upon until very recently. It was at least 18 months before all 14 recommendations were taken up. They were taken up but they have not been acted upon. We are almost at the end of the current government’s term and nothing has been done.

The research on elder abuse has been done. More reviews are not needed, but that is all we seem to get. We do not even have an elder abuse hotline. I hate to think how many

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