Page 1153 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 2012
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There is another very important older group in Canberra making a significant contribution. I refer to the many thousands of older carers in Canberra who have given their lives to care for their disabled children, their elderly parents, their siblings or their spouses. More than 2.7 million Australians provide care for family members or friends. One in every eight Australians has taken on a caring role.
Carers ACT tell us that there are over 43,000 carers, or approximately 14 per cent of the population in Canberra, who provide unpaid informal support to others who require care. Many of these are mature carers. These selfless people make an enormous difference to the quality of life of those for whom they provide care. In a strictly financial sense they also save the Canberra taxpayer, the Australian taxpayer, millions of dollars.
One of the important aspects of our community which we also need to touch on from this Assembly’s point of view—we touched on it briefly before when we mentioned fellow members of this Assembly—is that mature age Australians are classified as anyone over 45 years of age. On that basis, this Assembly is a living, breathing example of the importance of older Canberrans to the ACT.
Indeed, there is even a dedicated website for people over 45 looking for work—it might be a useful link for some on the other side of the chamber after 20 October this year. Olderworkers.com.au is a unique website where older job seekers, specifically 45 years of age and over, can go to apply for vacant positions. To be eligible for membership of the National Seniors organisation you need to be over 50. To be eligible for specific insurance plans such as those offered by APIA you need to be over 55 and not working full time. To receive the age pension you need to be over 65 for a male and 64.5 years for a female, although they are moving to equity on that. But if you are wishing to study at, say, the University of Western Australia, mature age students are classified as anyone over 20. In fact, when I did university studies in my 30s I enrolled as a mature age student.
Ms Burch: In the 1930s?
MR DOSZPOT: As to physical descriptions, one would not wish to rely on the description provided by our own Assembly members. On that note, I guess it is the same sort of courtesy to the elderly that Ms Burch has just demonstrated. The physical description one would not wish to rely on is the physical description provided by our own Assembly members, such as Mr Hargreaves who in a recent costly outburst referred to a community organisation as an “old persons club” made up of a “geriatric mob who just sit in their place” and “a self-interest group and I would not touch them with a barge pole”. An old proverb about glass houses comes to mind but I will let it pass, just as I will let Ms Burch’s very unseemly comment pass.
So to define an older Australian is not an exact science. The latest study of older Australians was published by the federal government in November 2007 in its publication Older Australia at a glance. It suggested that, based on the 2006 census, there were over 2.6 million Australians aged 65 and over. It showed that we have about 69 per cent of Australians in the zero to 49 age group; 17.5 per cent in the 50 to
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