Page 2992 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 August 2008
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delays are unacceptable. They are far too long. There is too much expectation and anxiety built up in the community. And half a generation of elderly people have died while they have waited for these things to come on line.
There are many things that we can do in relation to encouraging social inclusion. One of the initiatives that Mr Pratt spoke about in the previous debate is our proposal to encourage mature-age graduates who have already had one career to contemplate a teaching career. In the ACT we have a large number of people who, at the age of 54 years and 11 months, are in a situation where they really have to retire from the commonwealth public service because of the conditions of their superannuation scheme. We do not want those people to go away.
We have people who are highly qualified, who have years of experience and who have huge expertise in a whole lot of academic areas, especially in maths and the sciences. We do not want those people to go away—to go down to the coast and play golf. After a while, they suddenly discover that is a bit boring if that is all they do with their lives. There is an awful lot of golf to be played between your 55th birthday and your 80th birthday, and it can pall after a while. We want these people to be actively engaged in the community, not just for their benefit but for our benefit.
One of the initiatives that I have always applauded the government for is its volunteers in schools program. Two or three weeks ago there was a nice piece on Stateline about volunteers in schools. It is an extraordinarily heart-warming experience to see people who look forward to going to school to help people with their reading and things like this. The beautiful interaction between young people, some of whom do not have contact with their grandparents, and the volunteers is very heart-warming and it does the school system a great deal of good.
I have had dealings with the CC cares program at Canberra college campus at Stirling; we have grandmother substitutes coming in to assist the girls in the young mothers program. They provide a great role model for those girls. These are the areas where we should be encouraging people to take part and be part of the community.
We need to be sending very strong messages that, just because someone retires from the paid workforce, that is not the end of the contribution that they make. Most people know that when they retire they are really just as busy as they were before; they just get paid differently.
Mr Pratt: Really?
Ms Porter: As you are about to find out.
MRS DUNNE: As you, I suspect are about to find out. In this day and age, most people do not envisage retirement in the way that I suspect my parents did. Most people of my age and a bit older, when they talk about retirement, say, “I cannot quite imagine what retirement is.” It is something that is quite a long way off and it is something that you would come to very gradually.
It is important to ensure that we do all that we can to foster social inclusion by all members of the ageing community—not just the senior public servants who have the
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