Page 5603 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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the ACT as well. With a growing number of retirement villages with diverse living arrangements, residents in the ACT decided to form their own association. I was privileged to be able to address the historic first meeting of the association at the Hellenic Club in Woden last Thursday. I completely support this endeavour and their desire to develop a collective voice.
This is a prime example of older Canberrans taking the decision to engage in the policy process. To this point, however, I have done everything in my power to engage older Canberrans on this issue. As part of my work to develop the exposure draft of the Retirement Villages Bill, I have sought to engage older Canberrans to ensure that the exposure draft bill is informed by their opinion, their wisdom and their experience.
Engaging with older Canberrans is similar to engaging with any other group. However, different approaches may be needed to reach different individuals within the group. Understanding this, I have utilised a range of methods to ensure that all those older Canberrans who want to have their say, can have their say. My consultation process on the exposure draft took me out of this building and into the community, making myself available at public forums to listen to the views and issues of older Canberrans.
I have visited the homes of older Canberrans to better understand their viewpoints and note their concerns. I have hosted them in my office on numerous occasions. I frequently have detailed and lengthy discussions with older Canberrans over the phone to better understand their viewpoints. Of course, this is the way members work in their day-to-day dealings with their constituents and in ensuring that we all listen and take account of the views of those we serve.
We, as a government, are determined to continue to engage with older Canberrans in the decision making process, as we indeed do with all Canberrans. I think the recent 2030 discussions are a good example of the way the government has provided, again, an opportunity for all Canberrans to have a say on what they envisage their city will be like in future. This discussion is important as, while we all belong to a certain age bracket and we may all belong to various interest groups, our community and members of it do not present a homogenous group—far from it. We revel in our diversity.
We are living longer and we are healthier. We are still in the paid workforce or we are studying or we are travelling. We continue to manage organisations or we are on the boards of those organisations or we are volunteers in a hands-on way. We are doing many things as older Canberrans. The stereotyping mentioned by Ms Bresnan is unfortunate, and to dismiss any part of our community by stereotyping is to discount the important role different people play in our community. I note that other groups suffer from this. For instance, we see young people being stereotyped. We see people with disabilities and people with mental illness suffering from the same experience. To do this is to dismiss their experience and to dismiss them as important members of our community who contribute much.
When Mr Seselja was talking about his various perceptions of what older people were like or what they might do, I was reminded of a radio interview that I had many years when I was working as a director in community work at the then Tuggeranong
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