Page 894 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
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opinion of those who read, watch or seek their news from traditional media is clear: he does not really care about them. He has made it clear how he feels about seniors and their opinions—how he wishes to live in a utopian state so that, as soon as you become a senior, you leave Canberra and the government does not need to consult with you anymore.
In fact, to take that even further, this government has often denigrated the input of community councils, claiming that they are made up of grumpy old men. While some of the community councils may have a number of older Canberrans on their executive, this, to me, is more indicative of the fact that they now have more time to devote to community activities and they want to share the many years of experience and expertise that they have gathered over their lifetime, in the workforce or otherwise. They want to use that experience for the betterment of all Canberrans, and one of the ways they can do that is through the community councils. As another example, on average, viewers of the ABC news in the evening, the 7 pm bulletin, are people in their mid-60s, so we must continue to provide ways to communicate with our older Canberrans.
One of the major issues that older Canberrans face—older Australians and older people generally—is loneliness. It is important to make sure that seniors remain connected and informed and are able to participate in their community. The population in some areas of Canberra is much older on average than in other areas of Canberra—for example, in Weston Creek and Woden. To give an even more specific example, more than a quarter of residents of the suburb of Hughes are over the age of 60, and within 40 years over a quarter of all Canberrans will be over 65 years of age.
In this motion I am asking the ACT government to change their attitude towards older Canberrans, to take meaningful action to improve their lives and ensure they are not disproportionately disadvantaged by discriminatory or uncaring government policy. We know that ACT government policies have consistently disproportionately hit older Canberrans the hardest, including with rates increases, with difficult to access and uncoordinated services, and with a lack of priority for older Canberrans. We have seen concessions removed and changed for seniors, creating confusion and distress amongst older Canberrans. Concessions have been poorly advertised, and more than half of our suburbs are not age-friendly.
On the age-friendly suburbs policy, which I mentioned at the start, currently, funding to make our suburbs age-friendly is being allocated at two suburbs a year. After an audit in 2014 that found that more than half of our suburbs are not age-friendly, the government launched their age-friendly suburb program. The age-friendly suburb program is a good program, but isn’t it really just a repackaging of basic municipal maintenance money—fixing broken footpaths and dangerous road crossings and providing better transport links, including covered bus stops? These are things that are important for all Canberrans. Other things that are important to older people include public toilets. We have many suburbs with no public toilets, but there is no upgrade of public toilets and no installation plans.
The current age-friendly funding for only two suburbs a year is also an issue. Ainslie and Weston were upgraded in 2016, Monash and Kaleen were upgraded in 2017 and
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