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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4001 ..

We need to be aware, though, that it is appalling to suggest by innuendo and implication that there are public servants out there thwarting the process or selectively using the guidelines because something does not conform with the government’s view. This denigrates not only this place but also the committee process and Mrs Dunne. She stands condemned for what she has said.

I did not hear Mrs Dunne listing, for example, the government’s initiatives. She said, “We’re in dire circumstances.” The government in fact has recognised this. It recognised in its evidence that it has a commitment to the dire circumstances that Mrs Dunne talks about. If members look at pages 26 and 27 of the report they will get an idea of the attitude of ACTPLA and the Chief Minister’s Department. For example, paragraph 3.22 contains the following extract of what was said by the CMD:

Quite a lot of work has been done by the Land Development Agency to understand what the market wants on a site, especially section 87. We have spoken to providers. We have had meetings with the Commonwealth. Seminars have been held at which we have tried to understand where we think the market is at and where the market is actually going to be going, so when a block of land is released we put parameters around it and actually allow for the best form of development to meet the needs of the aged in Canberra.

That does not sound to me as though somebody is thwarting the process. It sounds to me as though something is being done.

I refer members to pages 15 and 16 of the report. This is a government that Mrs Dunne would have us believe is sitting on its hands and not paying appropriate attention to population growth. At those pages the report talks about the provision of low cost accommodation for older Canberrans through the construction of 82 aged persons units in 2004-05, to be located in the older suburbs, and $1.5 million worth of expenditure on modification to properties for new and existing tenants. It talks about lease offers having been made to the Little Company of Mary for a site in Bruce that will provide a 100-bed residential care facility and 80 independent living units; to Southern Cross Care for a site to provide a 70-bed residential care facility and 14 independent living units; and to Uniting Care at Mirinjani for a site in Weston to provide a 32-bed residential facility. Forty dwellings will be constructed on the Fadden/Gowrie site near Colin Hannah Park. Then we have the planning and consultation in respect of sites in Greenway, Nicholls and Gordon; planning studies on sites in Monash and Hughes are well advanced; and then, of course, we have got section 87 in Belconnen.

Mr Speaker, we have to acknowledge that there are complex arrangements and relationships between the Commonwealth and the ACT. There is a revolving door situation in that you cannot have the allocation unless you have got the land and you cannot get the land until you have got the allocation. That is being addressed.

I did not hear Mrs Dunne in her criticisms of and public utterances about section 87 talk about the fact that the Commonwealth has put a caveat on section 87. The Commonwealth is saying that you can have aged care beds so long as they go on section 87.

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