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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2950 ..

As we heard in estimates, the Little Company of Mary is now sitting down and doing their sums to see whether they have the financial wherewithal to proceed, given the planning constraints on the block. The government’s response is a complete washing of the hands. The government notes the recommendation, advises that the appropriate planning processes will be followed and continues to support the Little Company of Mary in its aged accommodation proposal. Support, in most cases, is seen by actions, by active participation in the process, by not getting in the way, by not being an embuggerance to people. A continuous stream of things are happening out at Bruce with the Little Company of Mary that get in the way and stop the process from going ahead.

One person spoke to me about this subject the other day. He said, “Vicki, if I had known what we were getting into when we started this process, we would not have started.” The ACT can ill-afford to have aged-care providers or potential aged-care providers being in the situation of saying, “It is just too hard to build a facility in this town because the planners get in our way.” I am not saying that the planners just turn their back, do not do anything and have open slather. That is not what I am saying. There needs to be reasonable regulation and it needs to be dealt with in a timely fashion. We are all getting older and very soon either we or our parents will need a facility just like the one that is not being built at Bruce across the road from Calvary because the planners, in particular, are getting in the way of providing an essential service to the people of the ACT. I do not want to hear another aged-care provider say to me, “If I knew what we were getting into before we started, we would not have started.”

We are now not just seeing a flight of capital from the ACT—people cannot build things because of the tortuous planning processes; Mr Quinlan said, “Trust us, we will get onto it and fix it”—but also having people who provide essential services, and increasingly important services, in the ACT being confounded.

Mr Pratt was speaking this morning about the lack of aged-care facilities for the ethnic communities and the lack of support for the Vietnamese and Chinese. The retirement village in Kaleen and other services are things which people in the ethnic community need. These matters are not being addressed. The government response to the recommendation to the Little Company of Mary project in Bruce is unacceptable. The government should be asking, “How can we be part of this solution?” rather than putting more obstacles in the way of the people of Canberra in their need for aged-care accommodation.

MRS BURKE (9.16): I have a couple of comments on the health line. I perhaps owe the Treasurer a small apology. I will make a small concession.

Mrs Dunne: Only a small one?

MRS BURKE: Only a small one because we are talking about only a small amount of money. I refer to the viability of Men’s Link. Whilst I have said that there is not much money; in fact, it still holds. It is not much, but at least I recognise, Treasurer, the allocation of $400,000 over four years for Men’s Link. That is a great start, but we certainly need to be able to be doing more than that for men in our community.

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