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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4147 ..

Can the minister advise the Assembly how often an audit is carried out to ensure that all clients of Mental Health ACT are having regular medical examinations? What can you tell the Assembly that supports this claim in the progress report?

MR CORBELL: I will take the question on notice and provide an answer as soon as I can.

MS TUCKER: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. I appreciate that. Can the minister also tell the Assembly how he has promoted GP services and whether contracting for the services has been required, as was suggested in recommendation 40.

MR CORBELL: Again, I will take that question on notice.

Aged persons accommodation

MS MacDONALD: My question is to the Chief Minister. Mr Stanhope, there has been a great deal of recent criticism of the government over the aged persons accommodation, particularly in regard to nursing home type accommodation. Chief Minister, can you inform the Assembly whether this criticism is misplaced? What is the government’s record of achievement in aged persons accommodation?

MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Ms MacDonald. It is a very important question. Indeed, an awful lot of misinformation has been peddled recently in relation to the provision of aged persons accommodation, particularly since we came to government three years ago. We have reviewed quite closely our record of achievement in this area, and we have compared it, as one would, against the record of achievement of the Liberal government in the three years and 10 months of its last term. The comparison is extremely interesting. We will go into that a bit more a little later today.

In the last three years we have achieved much in relation to aged care accommodation and the provision of land, facilities and support for aged care beds. I refer initially to the land bank for aged care facilities that has been established since we released our strategy ‘Building for our ageing community’ a year or so ago. In relation to the land bank and the forward strategic work we are doing for the provision of land for aged care facilities, the first stage of the sale process for the sites at section 87 at Belconnen has been advertised.

Three other sites, located at Gordon, Nicholls and Greenway, have been identified by the government in its forward land release strategy. They will be successively released over 2005 and 2006. Those four sites—at Belconnen, Gordon, Nicholls and Greenway—will accommodate about 400 aged care beds and 600 independent living areas. In addition to that, we have approved the direct sale of blocks in Garran, Bruce, Monash, Weston and Hughes, which, when complete, are planned to house 356 aged care beds and 244 independent living units. Some of those beds have not yet received Commonwealth funding.

Mr Cornwell: When did you do all this?

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