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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Tuesday, 9 March 2004) . . Page.. 907 ..

people have been affected as a result of this because this government has not even bothered to put in a hotline so people can report the various forms of elder abuse that occur.

Similarly we are still waiting to see the review paper—just the review paper, not the actual decisions—of the Powers of Attorney Act 1956, which the Attorney-General has assured me is to be released some time this month. The government has been in office for 2½ years. We have not seen anything tangible. We will now see a review and I have no doubt that the Powers of Attorney Act will not be implemented prior to this Assembly going to an election later this year.

I have highlighted three areas: planning, elder abuse, and powers of attorney. But of course there are many others: nursing home staff shortages, the problem of wage disparity between nurses in hospitals and nurses in nursing homes, and inadequate working conditions.

It is simply not good enough for the ACT government to say that these are Commonwealth matters. They are not. They are as much ACT government matters as the rest of the planning process because we are dealing with ACT residents. The Minister needs to address these questions.

There is not much use solving the planning problem if you cannot overcome the nursing problems and the staffing problems that exist in nursing homes, if ever we can get these 255 beds off the ground. This year 210 are to commence: 14 are under construction, and another 80 are to be completed this year. As I said before, they do not add up to 255. This should not surprise anybody for the simple reason that it is very difficult trying to get this government to sort out aged care facilities—it seems to be all over the place.

We have still to see evidence of a promised land release program. There is our old friend, the O’Connell Education Centre down there in Griffith, section 48, and the Joint Emergency Services Centre site in Curtin, which I understand are also earmarked by this government for aged care facilities. We have heard nothing about this from them. This was stated at a Council on the Ageing Meeting of 16 February.

I have not heard a word from the planning minister; I have not heard a word from Mr Stanhope, the minister for the ageing as to whether anything will happen with those. We have not heard anything about the improvements that may be drawn up to redevelop existing sites and vacant portions of existing community facility leases, such as next to Catholic churches.

These comments are in total contradiction to what the minister has been saying and what the government has been doing in levying extra charges for change of purpose clauses in these areas. I repeat: the government is long on rhetoric and on reviews, but it is very short on providing something tangible to address this growing aged care crisis overwhelming this city.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (3.52): The implications of an ageing population for all levels of government and the broader community are quite obviously massive. Recent ABS population projections suggest that the number of people in the Canberra

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