Page 1096 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 30 March 2011
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government, through the ACT Office for Ageing, is committed to the promotion of active lifestyles and positive community connections.
Since the launch of the ACT strategic plan for positive ageing 2010-14: towards an age-friendly city in December 2009 by my colleague Ms Joy Burch, the Minister for Ageing, the government has launched a new information portal, seniors information online, as part of a response to concerns from seniors that they could not locate the information they required. Further, for the last two years the Chief Minister’s Department has worked closely with the Canberra Museum and Gallery to hold exhibitions to celebrate the lifelong contributions of the Canberra gold award recipients, an exhibition that celebrates some of the community groups that have brought together people in ways that enrich Canberra through their contribution to sport, culture and community involvement and in doing so made Canberra the city it is today.
As a Labor government, we have improved the accessibility of public transport and in order to provide convenient and cheaper bus travel for seniors we recently introduced a combined ACT seniors myway card which included an early bird offer of $10 worth of preloaded bus travel. This initiative follows on from the introduction of free bus travel, the ACTION gold card, for our over 75s, a fantastically popular reform in public transport introduced while I was minister responsible for transport in 2008. In fact, nearly 9,000 gold cards have been issued since its introduction in July 2008. The Stanhope Labor government has been really pleased with the response from ACT seniors to these initiatives. Anecdotal reports about the seniors myway card from COTA (ACT) and staff from our ACT government shopfronts and libraries confirm that seniors are very pleased with the combined card.
The ACT seniors grants and sponsorships program continues to support and encourage social inclusion and participation of older people in our community. In October 2010, 13 projects were funded, including a program to connect school children with seniors in aged-care homes and a grant to stage the second grand party in Glebe Park.
The Stanhope Labor government’s construction of almost 300 older persons dwellings as part of the nation building and jobs plan will deliver increased housing supply, good planning outcomes, urban infill on previously underutilised sites and provide an opportunity to address public housing supply issues which arise from the dual challenges of an ageing tenant population and high levels of underutilisation across the ACT portfolio. The construction program will also provide older public housing tenants with attractive and modern supportive housing options which promote positive ageing in their community.
These homes are typically two bedrooms, with an oversized single garage. To further enable older clients to age in place, some of the units have a third bedroom so that a live-in carer can also be accommodated. The homes are very energy efficient, achieving a minimum six-star rating, with many at 6.5 or seven stars. They have gas heating, with the majority with solar-boosted gas hot-water systems, features that make them very attractive for older Canberrans. Indeed, there is one person
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